I looked round and tried to get my bearings. Once I found the gate and was out on to the road I could be on my way. Not to Aunt Jessie, not this time, it was the first place they would look for me. I thought of Michael and willed him to come and find me again but he was probably in bed thinking me safe if unhappy at Mrs Dixon’s house.
Hunger bit a hole in my stomach, I’d no proper food for a few hours now and I was a girl who liked my food. To my friend Sally Bevan it was a mystery and a source of irritation that however much I ate, I stayed small and slim. Poor Sally was plump but nicely so with nicely shaped bosoms, not huge cushions like Aunt Jessie’s but round and soft and sticking through her blouse to taunt the boys. I noticed they all looked at Sally’s bosoms, even John Adams.
My legs were tired and my knee ached where George had kicked me. I sat down and picked at a glossy leaf of some plant or other and in the dark scratched John’s initials on it by memory and put it in my shoe. The idea was that if it turned black by morning, he loved you.
My sensible mind told me that stick any plant in a sweaty school shoe and it would go black but I put that out of my mind. I tried to think of John but instead saw Michael’s face. Hastily, I took the leaf out of my shoe and threw it away. John Adams was in the past after all. Michael was here and now.
Eight
Kate dressed carefully. The skirt of her dress was soft grey wool, made from a blanket; her blouse was an old one but was mock velvet and clung flatteringly to her slim figure. She regretted it looked shiny in parts as it was much washed but at least the colour suited her.
She was meeting Eddie again tonight and her heart fluttered, a tiny colourful butterfly caught in gossamer threads inside her. She felt happy in spite of the threat of air raids, in spite of the constant play of searchlights overhead on the lookout for enemy planes. Her foot brushed against a sandbag and a shower of sand scattered over her lovely red shoes. She brushed it aside impatiently. A stone dug into the hole in her shoe but she ignored it; nothing was going to spoil her happiness. Tonight she would be with Eddie and soon, she was sure, he would propose.
She loved him, ‘loved the bones of him’ as her mammy would say. Eddie wasn’t handsome, he had a sweet mouth underneath a golden moustache, his eyes were blue and they looked at her with love and respect. Very important that, respect.
For a moment she felt uneasy, wishing she hadn’t given herself to any other man. But then they were in need, frightened, wanting the warmth and comfort of a woman’s arms. Any woman’s arms. She was uneasy again.
Eddie was waiting for her outside the Empire and he smiled and moved towards her the instant he saw her. He took her hands and leaned down to kiss her cheek. She felt a flare of happiness and cuddled his arm close to her side.
‘Easy there!’ he said, ‘you’ll give a boy unworthy thoughts.’
She wished sometimes he would have ‘unworthy thoughts’. She should be happy—but now, she was used to a man, the scent, the touch, the thrusting passion that swamped every sensible thought.
He’d managed to get her some chocolate and he gave it to her in the perfumed intimacy of the theatre, his fingers gently squeezing hers. She took his hand and kissed it. ‘I love you, Eddie Carter,’ she whispered in the soft darkness.
Behind her there was a shuffling sound and she glanced over her shoulder and froze as she met the mocking gaze of Stephen, her first pilot. He winked slowly, suggestively—and abruptly she turned away.
The audience fell silent as the curtain swished open and then the stage was filled with light and music and dancing girls in gaudy dresses, but under the lights they looked ethereal, beautiful.
The thought of Stephen plagued her all evening. She thought of him as he’d been that long ago cold night, soft, clinging and needy in her arms and yet now he looked at her so differently as though… as though she was nothing more than a good-time girl.
She was glad to join the crowds singing the national anthem and then they were in the carpeted aisle, making for the door.
‘Wait up there.’ It was Stephen. ‘I’m going to a party back stage, want to come, you chaps?’
Kate was about to decline but Eddie was smiling politely. ‘Very kind, old man, love to wouldn’t we, Kate?’ He drew her hand through his arm in a proprietary way and Stephen looked amused.
‘I might be in the skies over German territory later on, you never know, tonight could be a matter of life or death so I’ve got to make the most of it haven’t I, Kate?’
He had changed so much. Stephen was hard, the baby softness of his jaw gone, a cynical light in his eyes. ‘The dancing girls here are always so, so amenable, know what I mean?’
Eddie didn’t. He stuck out his hand. ‘Edward Carter.’
Stephen looked surprised. ‘No names, no pack drill, eh, old chap?’
Eddie dropped his hand. ‘No, I suppose not.’
The room in the back of the theatre was hot with smoke and ripe with heavy perfume. To Kate’s disappointment, the dresses of the dancers, so lovely on stage, were no more than bits of straggly net revealing a great deal of flesh. Drinks were handed round, mock champagne but with a real kick to it.
Stephen had wandered away and was leaning over a girl with dyed blonde hair and Kate grimaced. The girl should work in the munitions, she’d have yellow hair courtesy of the Ministry of Defence.
The girl looked Kate’s way and she was laughing. ‘Looks like butter wouldn’t melt.’ The words drifted to where Kate stood. She felt the colour suffuse her cheeks and shame crawled over her like the legs of a centipede.
‘Let’s go,’ she said to Eddie, ‘I don’t want to be here.’
‘OK.’ Eddie smiled. ‘I’ll just pop to the WC and then we’ll be away, this isn’t really our kind of thing is it?’
While Eddie was away from her, Kate fumed with impatience. The girl Stephen had been talking to looked her over and strolled to where she stood. ‘So you know Stephen, do you?’
‘Well…’ Kate spread her hands not knowing what to say. To her horror she saw Stephen and Eddie return to the room together. Stephen had his arm around Eddie’s shoulder and Eddie was looking pale and stunned.
He came to her side without looking at her.
‘Hello,’ the blonde said, smiling her lipstick smile at him. ‘I’m Marybell.’ It was a name as false as the quality of her dress. The dancer held out her hand to Eddie in a languid, affected pose and after a moment he took it but didn’t look up.
‘So you’re keeping company with little Irish Kate.’ She looked down from her great height at Kate. ‘Little Joan of Arc, saving everyone except herself.’
‘We’d better go.’ Eddie nodded curtly and turned towards the door and, with a baleful look at Stephen, Kate hurried to catch up with him.
He strode away in the darkness and she struggled to keep up with him. ‘Wait Eddie, tell me what’s wrong!’
‘What’s wrong?’ He spun round to face her and all she could see were the dark edges of his jaw and the tautness of cheeks. ‘I’ve just heard you’re the best blanket the forces have got, lay down for anyone.’
‘Eddie! And you believe that drunken Stephen’s every word do you?’
He became still. ‘Are you telling me it’s a lie? If you are I believe you, Kate, God, I want to believe you.’
She hung her head. ‘It’s true I let Stephen… he was frightened, flying into danger, he might not come back, ever. I felt sorry for him.’
‘So was he the only one you felt sorry for?’
She was silent a long moment. ‘No.’
‘Oh Kate, I worshipped you, I might have known it wouldn’t be true that you loved me, plain gormless Eddie.’ His voice was anguished.