Where the Heart Is (37 page)

She could feel the fierce burn of the intensity with which his gaze searched her face.

‘There is no one I would rather greet this and every New Year with than you, Francine,’ he answered her. ‘You know that, just as you know how much you mean to me and how much I love you.’

Her throat had gone very dry but she wasn’t going to stop now.

‘Show me,’ she asked him softly, holding out her arms to him. ‘Show me how much you love me, Marcus. Hold me, love me and promise me that you’ll never ever let me go.’

His response was to reach for her, wrapping his arms tightly round her, kicking the door closed behind him as he did so, before bending his head to kiss her with all the love and passion she had missed and longed for so much.

‘We won’t make plans,’ she whispered to him. ‘We’ll just live every day as it comes, love one another every day we have. I don’t want to be cheated of any more happiness, Marcus.’

Being on duty over Christmas had been much more fun than Lou had expected. They’d worked hard, of course–planes still needed servicing and repairing–and the sergeant had still bawled them out when they were too slow, but there’d been hot mince pies at their morning tea break, and Christmas cake in the afternoon as a special treat, and then on Christmas Day itself the officers on duty had served them, in the proper Forces tradition. The canteen staff had put up decorations and there’d been a real party atmosphere, just as though they were all part of one big family, which in a way, of course, they were.

And she’d got her wonderful exciting hope for the future to hug to herself. It was there in the morning, when she woke up and opened her eyes, filling her with a joy she knew she could never properly explain to others.

There’d been presents to open from her family, and she’d thought of them, and pictured them at home opening theirs, missing her as she was missing them, but she’d missed them in a happy sort of way, knowing that she’d got something so special to look forward to.

On Boxing Day they’d entertained the children from the nearby village, with the sergeant dressing up as Father Christmas. They’d played games with the kids–blind man’s bluff and hunt the slipper
- and if a handful of the men had tried to turn the situation to their advantage by changing the game into a grown-up version of sardines, well, it was only the girls who made it plain that they wanted to join in and permit a few stolen kisses that got targeted, and since Lou wasn’t one of them she’d had a very jolly time playing with the children.

She’d missed her family, especially Sasha, and it had felt lonely waking up on Christmas morning without her twin to snuggle up in bed with, whilst they explored the contents or their stockings, even if she had been in a hut full of other girls.

When would she hear about the ATA? She was so excited and yet still half afraid to believe that it was true and that she could get the chance to train as a pilot. Please let me be chosen, she begged silently in her prayers. I’ll do anything, if only I get that posting, she promised inwardly, anything and everything I can to be picked.

There was a change in the air, everyone was saying so, with the turning of the year from 1942 to 1943, and the victory of El Alamein. The bleak despair and hardship that had hung over the whole country during 1942 was giving way to a new spirit, not just of hope but the actual belief that the possibility was there that the war could be and would be won, and that Hitler would be defeated.

No one was saying that it was going to be easy, or that many more lives would not be lost, but the country’s mood had changed. Heads and shoulders that, in 1942, had been bowed were now lifted and straightened; the austerity of daily life, which had dragged people down, had now become a proud badge of endurance. The country felt deep within itself that the tide was ready to turn.

For Bella, still waiting to receive her first letter from Jan since she had heard of his captivity, the significance of what was happening meant that she could dare to hope that the war would end with the Allies the victors and that Jan would be safely restored to her.

To Jean the good news meant less; Luke had rejoined his unit and the Allies were still fighting in North Africa.

To Lou, waiting nervously for the all-important letter that would signal that she was being transferred to ATA for pilot training, the days were filled with anxiety and hope. Verity had stopped off at the base in the middle of transporting a Spitfire, on a freezing cold February day to tell Lou that she had put her name forward and set things in motion.

To Sasha the winter’s slow crawl towards spring was as irritating as it was long drawn out. As she hurried to meet Bobby at Lyons after work, the March wind coming off the Mersey buffeted her with its boisterous embrace.

‘Have you spoken to Captain Harrison yet about you getting a transfer into another unit?’ was the first thing she said to Bobby when she found him waiting outside the café for her.

‘Let’s get out of this wind,’ he suggested, going to take her arm, but Sasha pulled back.

‘You haven’t, have you?’ she demanded angrily. ‘Bobby, you know what we agreed. You promised me that you would tell him.’

Tears of anguish and disappointment stung her eyes. Why could no one understand how she felt: how miserable and afraid Bobby being with Bomb Disposal made her feel, and how envious she was of the other girls she worked with, whose men were safe in reserved occupations and not risking their lives like Bobby had to?

Sasha didn’t know when she had started to feel like this, when being proud of Bobby’s bravery had become instead a terrible fear for his safety, which had grown from that into a feeling of fear and anger that boiled up inside her, blocking her throat, making her heart thud frantically, filling her with a sickening feeling of panic that she just couldn’t explain to anyone, but which made her afraid almost to move. Thinking of what Bobby had to go through every time a bomb had to be defused made that feeling worse. Sometimes at night she couldn’t sleep for remembering how she had felt when she had been trapped in that bomb shaft, thinking she was going to die. She had had Lou to hold on to her, and then Bobby to take her place so that she could be safe, but who was there to do that for Bobby, and what would she do if anything happened to him and she lost him?

‘It isn’t as easy as that, Sash. We lost two good lads last month and it isn’t easy getting replacements. I’d feel that I was letting the unit down if I asked for a transfer out now. It affects everyone’s morale when we lose someone.’

‘You don’t want to let them down but you don’t seem to mind letting me down’ Sasha stormed, without allowing him to finish. ‘You promised me, Bobby, you know you did.’

Bobby frowned. He was an easy-going young man, who genuinely wanted to do whatever would make Sasha happy, but there were some things a chap just could not do, not without letting down team mates who relied on him. He’d tried to explain this to Sasha but she’d got herself so
wrought up about the danger of his work that she just wouldn’t listen.

‘I know that I said I’d have a word with the captain, Sash …’

‘You
promised
me you’d tell him that you wanted to transfer out of Bomb Disposal.’

‘That was before we lost Wrighty and Thompson. Wrighty had been with our unit from the outset. Captain always used to say he was our good-luck mascot. If I’d told the captain I wanted to leave after we lost them, it would have looked like I was being a coward, walking away from the other lads and letting them down.’

As Bobby struggled for the words to explain to Sasha how he felt he could tell that she didn’t understand, and he hated seeing her so upset.

Bobby loved Sasha. He knew beyond any doubt that she was the girl for him, and he had known it since he’d found her stuck down the bomb shaft and looking like she was going to die there. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, except walk out on his mates when they all needed to stick together. He couldn’t do that and still call himself a man.

Sasha felt like bursting into tears, but of course she couldn’t because they were inside Lyons now, and the last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to herself.

‘Look, there’s a table there,’ Bobby told her, nudging her. ‘You go and sit down and I’ll go and queue up and get us our tea.’

‘If you really loved me like you keep saying you do then you’d tell the captain, instead of keep
saying you will and then not doing,’ Sasha hissed. ‘You know what I think, Bobby. I think that you don’t really love me at all.’

Before he could say anything Sasha marched over to the table he had indicted and sat down at it, keeping her back to him.

Why was it that no one understood how she felt: not her mother and certainly not her father, who had refused to let her and Bobby get married; not her twin; and not Bobby either, it seemed. Sasha swallowed against the lump of self-pity blocking her throat. Why could none of them understand how afraid she was for Bobby? All she wanted was for him to be safe, instead of doing some of the most dangerous of all war work–defusing enemy bombs.

She was tired of people treating her like a child, telling her one thing, promising her one thing, but then doing another, just like she didn’t really matter at all. Why, anyone would think that Bobby didn’t love her at all from the way he was behaving, not asking for a transfer when he knew all she wanted was for him to be safe. Left alone to dwell on her increasing unhappy thoughts, Sasha had worked herself up into a very bad mood indeed by the time Bobby arrived at the table carefully carrying a tray with two plates of beans on toast on it, along with tea for both of them.

‘I know what it is,’ she announced as soon as Bobby was sitting down. ‘You want to stay in Bomb Disposal really because those girls at the Grafton the other Saturday made such a fuss, saying how brave they thought you were. You’d rather have them fussing over you than please me.’

Bobby laughed. ‘Don’t be daft. Of course I wouldn’t.’

There! It was just as she’d been thinking. Everyone treated her like a child, even Bobby. Well, she wasn’t! And she wasn’t going to be fobbed off either.

‘And I’m supposed to believe that, am I, just like I believed that you’d do what you promised and tell the captain that you wanted to transfer out?’

‘Aw, come on, Sash. It isn’t the same thing at all,’ Bobby told her, tucking in to his beans.

Sasha was in no mood to be mollified. She pushed away her plate. ‘Well, I’m telling you now, Bobby, that unless you keep your promise to me and tell that captain that you want a transfer then it’s all over between you and me.’

Bobby’s good-natured smile disappeared and he too pushed away his food. ‘Come on, Sasha,’ he pleaded. ‘You don’t mean that. I know you’re upset. But—’

‘I do mean it,’ Sasha told him. ‘And if you loved me as much as you say you do then you’d do it.’

‘Sasha, it isn’t that easy. Like I’ve tried to explain to you, I can’t just let the other lads down. Look, finish your tea otherwise we’ll be late for the pictures.’

Sasha stood up. ‘I’m not going to the pictures with you, Bobby. In fact, I’m not going to see you again until you come and tell me that you’ve left Bomb Disposal.’ She pulled on her coat as she spoke.

‘Sasha, wait …’ Bobby begged her.

‘I mean it, Bobby,’ she told him, before she turned to slip through the crowded restaurant without looking back.

Bobby caught up with her within a few yards, reaching for her hand and then offering her his handkerchief when he saw that she was crying.

‘Don’t say things like that, Sash, please. You mean the whole world to me, you do.’

‘Oh, Bobby …’ Sasha wept as he took her in his arms. ‘I just want us to be married and for you to be safe, that’s all.’

‘Welcome back, Corp. We’ve missed you.’

The vigorous manner in which Andy pumped his hand as he welcome Luke back to the unit confirmed how pleased he was to have him back, even if he couldn’t resist joking, ‘Pity you missed the fun, though, and we had to rout Jerry without you. Mind you, at least you’ll get to see King George, even if you didn’t see Rommel’s backside.’

Even before he had been declared fit to return to duty, Luke had been itching to get back to his men, and he was delighted to have rejoined them in Tunisia, where it was already being rumoured that they would shortly be on the move, joining the assault on Italy.

‘I owe you one hell of a lot,’ Luke told Andy later on when he’d managed to snatch a few minutes alone with his friend. ‘You saved my life.’

‘Repaying the debt I owed you for saving mine, wasn’t I, mate? We’re even stevens now,’ Andy grinned.

Knowing that the other man used his jokes to cover his deeper feelings, Luke didn’t press the
subject. There was, after all, no need. They both understood that in war you did your best to protect your comrades, and that your loyalty to them and theirs to you, the things you shared mattered more than the things that set you apart from them; that the trust you gave them and they gave you had to be all encompassing, and an act of faith rather than a reality that had to be constantly examined for flaws and weaknesses.

Luke frowned. Wasn’t that the kind of trust that should exist between a chap and his girl when they loved one another? Wasn’t it the kind of trust that Katie had tried to tell him they should share, but which he had withheld from her? Why was he thinking about Katie so much? She seemed to have found a way to keep pushing into his thoughts when he didn’t want her to be there. It was over between them, after all, and surely it didn’t matter now that he hadn’t given her the trust he had just identified. But somehow it did matter.

It had happened at last. The CO had sent for Lou and told her that with immediate effect she had been posted to Barton-le-Clay, in the Bedfordshire countryside and, so she had been told, not far from Luton and Bedford itself, to begin her initial training to become an ATA pilot. Lou was beside herself with excitement and delight.

Admin had given her her travel warrant and she been told to pack her kit ready to leave the base at Lyneham first thing in the morning, in RAF transport, to be driven to the nearest railway station, and then north via London to her new posting.