‘Mark, please talk to me if you want to-’
‘I talk too much,’ he said heartily. ‘I can remember when you used to say so.’
‘That was in another world. If you-’
‘Hey, who’s that?’
There was a movement from outside the window and another airman looked in, jerking his head when he saw Mark. ‘We have to get back now,’ he said tensely. ‘Take off in an hour.’
‘Goodbye,’ Mark said, rising and leaning forward to kiss her.
She had a thousand things to say. I love you. Take care. Call me when you get back. But she said none of them, just followed him to the door and stood watching as he walked away. The girls of easy virtue were still there and one of them tried to stop and talk to him, but he shook her off and hurried on.
Mrs Gorton came to stand beside her at the door. ‘Is he your fiancé?’ she asked.
‘That’s him,’ Dee replied, her eyes on Mark’s retreating figure.
She wasn’t really listening to Mrs Gorton, and so missed the slight curious note in her voice. Nor did she hear the way she said, ‘Hmm!’ or see the pitying look the older woman gave her.
In fact she saw and heard nothing in the outside world. Now her whole universe was taken up by the feel of the ring on her finger, and joy that he’d remembered it in the middle of so much else.
There was another happiness, too. She treasured the moment when he’d come so close to confiding in her about the horrors of his job. That was what she could give him, what would draw them closer. All she needed was time. But time might yet be denied them. As night descended and she pictured him high up, making life and death decisions, she knew a return of terror and fiercely clasped the ring on her left hand.
He had said they wouldn’t catch him and it seemed as if he was right. He survived that night’s sortie and many others to come. Now the bombers focused all their attention on London in what became known as the Blitz. Dee and her parents took refuge in the Anderson shelter in the garden while the noise thundered around them and far off they could hear the screams of the injured and the crash of collapsing buildings. By a miracle, the Parsons’ house was left standing, but when they emerged in the morning there was always devastation to be witnessed.
During that time she saw Mark once more, meeting him at the café. When he left she strolled with him as close to the airfield as possible and blew him a kiss as he vanished. The way back lay past the café. To her surprise, Mrs Gorton was waiting for her at the door.
‘You’ve been good to me, so I thought I’d warn you,’ she said. ‘Are you really planning to marry that one?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Well, don’t, that’s all I’ve got to say. I told you last time how some of them carry on, but I didn’t tell you he’s one of the worst.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘Is it? Look at him. A feller like that can have any girl he wants, and don’t kid yourself that he’s all faithful and perfect because he isn’t. He takes what’s offered, like they all do.’
‘Why are you trying to turn me against him?’ Dee asked desperately.
‘Because I like you and you deserve better. Look, my dear, I can understand that you want to grab him while you can. After all, he’s a catch and you’re no great beauty. No offence meant.’
‘None taken,’ Dee assured her quietly.
‘But give him a miss. He’ll break your heart.’
She could stand it no more, but fled blindly, at first not even noticing that she was heading back to the airfield. She stopped a few yards from the wire perimeter, breathing hard. In the distance she could see lights, young men coming and going, laughing. They were ready for anything but expected no call tonight. Some of the figures in shirts and trousers were actually female, taken into the Air Force to serve as mechanics. She remembered how she and Mark had shared a joke about that long ago.
And then she saw him, walking across the grass in the company of two other young men, their laughter carried on the evening air. Three young women, also in uniform, were with them, in a high state of excitement.
Suddenly Mark stopped, turned to one, took her face in his hands and delivered a smacking kiss. Then the next. Then the third, while his male companions cheered and clapped. While the girls giggled and mimed shyness.
At this distance Dee knew she couldn’t be seen, but she still began to move backwards, seeking the protection of the shadows, talking sensibly to herself.
What she had seen meant nothing. Nothing at all. He hadn’t kissed those girls romantically or passionately, but swiftly, one after another, in front of an audience, as if in fulfilment of a bet. Yes, that was it. A bet. Now they were all headed for the tent where the six of them would spend the evening together in innocent camaraderie.
But Mark was the last one to go into the tent, held back by a girl who grasped his hand and seemed to be pleading with him. He was arguing, laughing, refusing her something she wanted. Dee held her breath, knowing that the decision he took now was crucial.
But he made no decision. The others came out, seized him and hustled him in. The tent flap descended. Silence. Now she would never know what he would have done.
Be sensible. You’ve always known he was a flirt, and these are special conditions. Anything that happens now doesn’t count. He didn’t go with her, and he probably wouldn’t have done.
But now Sylvia was there in her head, saying, ‘If he wanted to flirt, he flirted. If I showed that I minded, I was “making a fuss about nothing”.’
Mrs Gorton seemed to be there as well, joining in the chorus of warning, but Dee refused to listen. She began to run in the direction of the bus stop, but when she reached it she raced on, faster and faster, as though in this way she could outrun the truth. She ran until she could run no more, then slowed to a walk and groped her way through the darkness for an hour, until she reached home.
It took a while to talk herself into calm, but she managed it. Mark was risking his life for his country, and if he was occasionally tempted to look away from his fiancée-a fiancée who he didn’t love, she reminded herself-who knew the strain he was under? What right did she have to judge him?
Bit by bit, she persuaded herself that she was in the wrong. It took much effort for her sensible side kept fighting back, saying that he was selfish and immature. After a while she managed to silence common sense and send it slinking off into banishment, but it cast a grim look at her, warning that it would be back.
It tried one assault in a conversation she had with Patsy, who lived in the next street, whose husband was known as a ‘bit of a lad’, unable to resist temptation, but always returning home in the end with a sheepish look and the plea of, ‘You know it’s you I really love.’
Recently she’d heard that he’d been captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp. After sighing about how much she missed him, Patsy added wryly, ‘But at least now I know where he is every night.’
Dee smiled and escaped as soon as she could, but she couldn’t escape the voice that said she’d just seen her own future.
There were small incidents that might mean nothing, like the weekend he was supposed to come and stay the night with the family, but cancelled at the last moment.
Be reasonable, she told herself. He’s a fighter doing his duty. He can’t put you first. The phrase even if he wanted to floated through her mind and was finally dismissed.
It was Pete who delivered the final blow. Granted a few days leave from the airfield, he sought to earn a little extra money at the garage. Joe was glad to see him. Since Mark’s departure he’d been working alone and needed help.
‘He’s a good mechanic,’ he told Dee when she came home that night. ‘And I’ve said he must have supper with us tonight, because I knew you’d want to talk to him about Mark.’