He haggled briefly but gave in and sold her the little toy, identical to the other except for a frilly skirt. Then she raced back to Mark and thrust her trophy into his hand.
‘There you are! Now we both have one.’
‘You won this? I’m impressed.’
Briefly she was torn by temptation, but wisdom prevailed. ‘No, I persuaded him to sell her to me.’
‘How much?’
She grimaced. ‘One shilling and sixpence.’
‘How much? That’s a fortune. You could buy several pints of beer for that.’
‘I buy only the best,’ she assured him. ‘This is female Bruin, and she’s going to keep an eye on you for me.’
‘Going to nag me, eh?’
‘Definitely. And spy on you, and report back to me if you get up to mischief.’ But then she added in a quieter voice, ‘And look after you.’
‘Stop me doing stupid things?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Then I’d better look after her,’ he said. He made as if to tuck the toy into his jacket but held her up at the last minute.
‘She says it’s getting late and we ought to go home,’ he said.
‘And she’s always right.’
Hand in hand, they strolled out of the fair.
She remembered that evening long afterwards, for it was the last one of its kind. Soon after that, the lights of London went out one night, leaving the city in darkness and people groping their way home.
‘It’s only a trial,’ Joe reassured them, holding up a candle. ‘When the war starts, London will have to be blacked out for its own safety every night. This is to warn us to get ready.’
Sure enough, the lights eventually returned, but the sudden darkness had brought the truth home as nothing else could have done. Now it was real. Mark was no longer an Auxiliary but a part of the official Air Force, his skills honed to a fine edge, waiting for the formal declaration of war, and at last it came.
Now nothing would ever be the same again.
Mark managed a brief visit. Helen treated him as an honoured guest, preparing a special supper and leaving Dee only a few moments alone with him before he had to leave for the airfield where he would always be on call. As she watched him walk away, she wondered when or if she would see him again.
All around her the world was changing. Children were evacuated out of London to distant farms, men joined up or were conscripted, young women also joined up or went to work in factories or on farms, replacing the men. Dee briefly considered joining the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, an ambition that Mr Royce crushed without hesitation.
‘You’re a nurse-or you will be when you’ve passed your exams, very soon. I expect you to do well, and you’ll be far more use to your country exercising your medical skills.’
It was the closest anyone had heard him come to a compliment.
By now, everyone knew that war would be declared any day, and when it finally happened on 3rd September there was almost a sense of relief in the air. Now they could get on with things. Some of the patients even cheered.
Dee kept smiling, but when she was alone she slipped away into the hospital chapel and sat there, thinking of Mark, wondering what the future held.
Her exams came and went. Later, she could barely remember taking them, but she passed well and was offered a permanent job at the hospital.
Congratulations abounded. Matron told her she’d always known it would happen. Mr Royce, no longer a distant figure of authority, approached her in the canteen and insisted on buying her a cup of tea ‘to celebrate’.
Mark managed to make it back for a small family celebration, but most of the day was spent building the Anderson shelter. These shelters were made of sheets of corrugated iron, bolted together at the top, with steel plates at either end. They were set up in the garden, sunk as far as possible in the earth, for greater safety.
‘I’m not sleeping in that thing,’ Helen declared. ‘We’ll be better off in the house.’
‘Not if they start to bomb this part of London,’ Mark murmured.
He was reticent on the subject of his own sorties. Hitler was invading Europe, the British army had advanced in return and the Air Force was deployed to assist them. These bare facts were common knowledge, and beyond them he would say little.
The closest he came to revealing his feelings was as they were walking to the bus stop in the late afternoon. Nearby was a church, from which a couple was just emerging. The groom wore an army uniform. Instead of a wedding gown the bride wore a modest functional dress, only the flower on her shoulder suggesting that today was special.
‘Is something the matter?’ Mark asked, seeing her frown with concentration.
‘No, I’m just trying to remember where I’ve seen her before. Ah, yes, she works in the bakery three streets away.’
The bride saw her and waved. Dee waved back.
‘He’s probably just home on leave for a few days and they won’t have a honeymoon,’ she reflected. ‘There are so many of these quick weddings happening now.’
She didn’t press it further, leaving it up to Mark whether he seized the point and pressed for a wedding of their own. He was silent for a moment and she crossed her fingers.
‘Too many,’ he said at last.
‘What…what did you say?’
‘There are too many of these mad weddings. He’ll go away tomorrow and she may never see him again. If she does, he’ll be changed, maybe disfigured.’
‘But if she loved him she wouldn’t be put off by his disfigurement.’
‘She thinks she wouldn’t. They all say that, but they don’t know what they’re talking about. The other day I met a man who was a pilot in the last war. His face had been destroyed by fire.’
Through her hand tucked under his arm, Dee felt the faint shudder that went through him.
‘He hadn’t seen his wife in years,’ Mark continued. ‘He didn’t blame her. He said you couldn’t expect a woman to endure looking at him day after day.’
‘But he was still the same man inside,’ Dee said, almost pleading.
‘But he wasn’t. How could he be? How could you face that fire and be the same inside?’
Again there was the shudder, stronger now, and her hand tightened in sympathy. These days she seemed to understand him better with every moment that passed, and she knew that he would die rather than admit to being afraid.
At first there had been no need to fear. Everything was beginning in sunlight and hope as the planes soared up and over Europe to tackle Hitler’s invasion. But it soon became clear that the enemy had more powerful planes, and the British losses began to mount up. Mark was unscathed, but some of his friends weren’t so lucky.
He hadn’t told her, but she knew of two airmen whose bravery had resulted in the award of Victoria Crosses. But they never saw these tributes. They had died in action.
Now she had sensed the things that he could never put into words, and knew that secretly he dreaded fire more than anything else. More than pain. More than death. Fire.
‘Maybe she won’t be the same inside, either,’ she said. ‘Maybe she’ll just be what he needs her to be.’
He gave a sharp, ironic laugh. ‘If he’s there at all. Suppose he dies and leaves her with a child to rear alone? Suppose she has no family left, and is really alone with a child she-is that the bus I can see in the distance?’
‘Yes,’ she said sadly.
‘Time to go, then. Congratulations again on passing your exams. I’ll be in touch and we’ll try to see each other again soon.’
The bus was there. An arm around her shoulder, a quick kiss on the mouth, and he was gone.
She didn’t return home at once, but walked the streets as the light faded. Now she had her answer. There would be no early marriage, and perhaps no marriage at all. He’d expressed his refusal as consideration for her, and it sounded sensible enough, except that he didn’t love her and needed a good excuse.