Bluebirds (49 page)

After dinner she went to help her mother clear up and make coffee in the kitchen. Only the daily cleaning woman remained now out of the domestic servants. The cook, the parlour maid and the gardener had all left to join up. Her mother who had hardly ever washed up a cup in her life, much less cooked, seemed to have got quite used to working in the kitchen. She even spent hours helping in some canteen, apparently, making tea and sandwiches and dishing them out.

‘What do you think of Michal, Mummy?'

‘He's very charming, darling. Impeccable manners. I haven't had my hand kissed for years . . . it was rather nice. Lovely flowers, too. And, of course, one feels so sorry for the wretched Poles.'

‘I don't want you to feel sorry for him, Mummy. I want you to like him.'

‘Well, I do, darling. Such a brave young man.'

‘Because we want to get engaged. He's asked me to marry him and I've said yes. He's speaking to Daddy about it right now, while they're alone.'

She hadn't meant to blurt it out like that, but she couldn't keep the secret any longer. She wanted to see the delight on her mother's face when she heard the news. Instead, she saw shocked dismay.

‘Oh, Anne! I didn't realize . . . I thought you had just brought him home because he had nowhere else to go. I
thought you were rather sorry for him – like that girl at St Mary's whose parents lived abroad, and you used to ask to stay here in the holidays.'

‘Mummy, what
are
you talking about? I'm not sorry for Michal. I
love
him. And he loves me. I told you, we want to get married.'

‘But, Anne, you don't know what you're talking about. You're only nineteen. Much too young. You've had no experience of life.'

‘I've been away from home for more than a year. I
do
have some experience of life, as a matter of fact.'

‘Yes, but in the WAAF – that's not the real world.'

‘Well, it seems pretty real to me. People
really
get killed. We've had
real
bombs dropping on us.
Real
things like that happen all the time.'

‘Don't be sarcastic, Anne. That's not what I meant.' Her mother was looking appalled. ‘I can see why you like him, of course. That type can be very attractive. He's very good-looking, very . . . worldly. Much older than you.'

‘He's twenty-five, that's all.'

‘He seems more.'

‘He's suffered a lot, that's why. He's lost his home and his country, and perhaps his family too. And he's been fighting the Germans for a long time.'

‘Yes, well, as I said, darling, I feel very sorry for him – for them all. But he's a foreigner, Anne, and from a country you know nothing about, not even somewhere like France. You can't know much about him either.'

‘I know a great deal about him, as it happens. We've been seeing each other for more than six months, whenever we could.' She met her mother's eyes steadily. ‘I know him very well.'

They faced each other for a moment in silence before her mother looked away. She said coldly: ‘I hope you've remembered, Anne, that we've brought you up to have certain moral standards . . . I expect that of you, at least. It seems to me that in all this you're letting us down yet
again. Being wilfully difficult and headstrong. You're far too young and it's quite ridiculous for you to think of marrying an RAF fighter pilot in wartime, even if he were English. Apart from the fact that he could be killed any day and leave you a widow, how is he going to support you properly on service pay?'

‘I'd far sooner be his widow than never have been his wife. And I don't care about the money.'

‘There's no need to raise your voice like that at me. You're speaking like the child you still are. You've never had to worry about money, never had to count every penny or go without. You don't know what you're talking about. Daddy will never hear of your marrying him. What could this Pole possibly offer you? What sort of background does he come from anyway?'

‘It's just as good as mine – probably better. His family have a big estate in Poland.'

‘So he
says.
It might be a complete lie for all you know. It almost certainly is –'

‘I'm not going to listen to you speaking like that about Michal.' She was shouting now. ‘Just because he's not one of those chinless wonders out of Debrett that you've always wanted me to marry . . . he's worth
ten
times any of them!'

She blundered furiously from the kitchen. Upstairs in her bedroom she sat on the windowseat, hugging Eliza in her arms and letting her angry tears fall on the doll's head.

Her father came in search of her later, knocking quietly on the door. He sat down beside her and offered his silk handkerchief.

‘Dry your tears, poppet. I've given my permission for you and Michal to get engaged because, knowing you, if I said no you'd simply go and elope. But I'm making one condition of giving my blessing. I want you to wait until your next birthday before you actually get married.'

She stared over the handkerchief. ‘But that's six months away at least! Why?'

‘Because I want you to be very sure of what you're doing – both of you. I like your Pole, Anne. I know a brave and decent man when I see one, but he's a foreigner and you're foreign to him.'

‘You sound just like Mummy. You'll be telling me he hasn't got the right sort of background in a moment.'

‘It's nothing to do with right or wrong backgrounds, but of two different ones. Two different countries. Different languages, customs, ideas, religions – he's Roman Catholic, of course. And I'm thinking ahead to the future. When this war is over, he may want you to go and live in Poland. To leave England and your family and everything you've known all your life. Have you really thought about that? Because you should.'

‘He might stay on here. Live in England.'

‘He hasn't said that. All he has spoken of is returning to Poland one day. And who knows to what conditions? His country will have been devastated by war. His family may all be dead, his home destroyed . . . he may have nothing material whatever to offer you . . . and yet he may still want you to live there with him. You will need to be very, very sure, if you do that. I can see that you are very much in love with him, and he with you, but it must be able to stand the test of time, and everything else as well.'

She screwed the handkerchief into a ball in her fist. ‘Michal may not even survive six months, Daddy. Have you thought of that? I don't want to wait. I can't
bear
to wait! I want to be with him as much as I can.' She was sobbing.

He put his hand over hers. ‘Calm down, poppet. You must think of Michal too.'

‘I
am
thinking of him.'

‘No, you're not. Not clearly. The Battle of Britain is over but the RAF still has a vital part to play in this war. And a dangerous one, as you know only too well. If Michal is worrying about you when he's flying, as his wife and his responsibility, then it will make it even more
dangerous for him. Don't you see? A fighter pilot should have nothing on his mind but the job in hand. Now, in another six months things may be a lot easier. We're not doing too badly in North Africa . . . Who knows, the Americans may even come into the war to help us. That's another good reason for waiting a while.'

She gulped and sniffed. ‘I suppose so . . .'

He patted her hand. ‘I'm talking sense, poppet, believe me. Now, come downstairs and we'll open a bottle of champagne to celebrate.'

‘I don't think Mummy's going to want to celebrate much. I just had an awful row with her. She's dead against it.'

‘She just needs to get used to the idea, that's all. I've spoken to her and she's in the drawing-room right now, talking to Michal.' He kissed the top of her head. ‘We do have your happiness at heart, Anne, even though you may not believe it.'

Her mother had pinned on a false smile. Anne watched her being very gracious to Michal. She is smiling at him, she thought, but all the while, inside, she is saying to herself that, with any luck, he may be killed before Anne can marry him. Then she thinks I'll end up marrying the sort of stuffed-shirt drip she's always hoped I will, and she'll be able to plan the sort of wedding she's always wanted. Not a mixed, hole-in-the-corner affair with a Catholic foreigner, but a full-blown one in the village church. Me in clouds of white, bridesmaids, flowers everywhere, ‘Praise my Soul the King of Heaven,' a huge marquee on the lawn, all the smart friends . . . She moved to Michal's side and put her arm defiantly through his.

That night she tiptoed barefoot down the passage to the spare bedroom and slid, shivering, beneath the bedclothes into Michal's arms. She snuggled close against his warmth. They talked in whispers.

‘
Kochana
, your feet are like ice.'

‘Sorry. I didn't bother with slippers. I just couldn't sleep at all, knowing you were here in this house –
so near to me. I wish we hadn't agreed to wait six months.'

‘It is right to do as your father asks. He has good reasons and it is not for very long.'

‘It's too long for me. I hate the thought of it.'

He stroked her hair. ‘We must be patient. I do not wish you to quarrel with your parents because of me. That would be sad. And now, I can buy you a ring. Tomorrow we go to the next town and look in shops. I have saved money. It is not so much, but we find something you like and one day I buy you one much better.'

‘I won't want anything better. I'll want to keep that one and wear it always.'

‘So many women would not say that. Are you more warm now?'

‘Yes, thanks to you.'

His hand moved down her body. ‘More pyjamas, Anne?'

‘Old school ones, this time.'

‘So many buttons . . .'

She crept back to her own room in the small hours, skirting the floorboards that always creaked. Her bed was cold and lonely without him.

THE WINTER DAYS
lengthened gradually into spring. Winnie, doing her turn as Orderly Room Duty Clerk one evening, looked out of the window at the sun still shining, and listened to the birds singing. It made her feel better.

RAF Mantleham was nothing like as nice as RAF Colston. The fighter station was just a collection of huts hurriedly erected in flat and muddy Suffolk fields that took the full force of the prevailing wind. The hut where she slept with other WAAFS was even worse than the first one they had lived in at Colston. It was never warm, condensation streamed down the walls and the concrete floor was always wet. She missed the WAAFS she had known at Colston badly – Vera, Anne, Sandra, Pearl, Gloria . . . even Maureen and Susan. The ones at Mantleham were not very friendly and she felt like an outsider. She had arrived alone and in the hut she was a new girl among airwomen who all knew each other well. And the only one who was married. They looked at her curiously and treated her as though she were somehow different from the rest of them. She would have liked to tell them that she wasn't – that she wasn't really like a properly married woman at all, that she didn't know anything more about what that was like than they did. But she couldn't. That wouldn't have been fair to Ken.

She went on looking out of the Orderly Room window, thinking about poor Ken. She had a bike now because the Waafery was sited so far away from the rest of the station, and she used it to ride over to Elmbury to see Ken whenever she could. Lately she thought he had seemed better. Now that the weather was beginning to warm
up, perhaps he might be able to go outdoors a little. They might be able to go for a walk, or even do some bird-watching. Anything would be better for him than just being at home, either upstairs in bed or sitting in that dark dreary room behind the shop. Next time, if it was fine she'd suggest that, though Mrs Jervis would probably try to stop it.

So long as Ken's mother had anything to do with it, there was no chance of any sort of normal married life. She never let Ken forget for one minute that he was an invalid, or Winnie how much she was resented.

‘I've given Ken his tea, Mrs Jervis. You don't have to bother.'

‘I'd sooner you didn't, if you don't mind. I know just how he likes it. If you make it too strong it's very bad for him.'

‘He said it was all right. I was very careful.'

‘Just the same, I'd sooner you didn't.'

At night her presence in Ken's old room, just across the narrow passageway from theirs inhibited them hopelessly. Every sound could be heard and she thought that even if Ken had not been so weak and ill, nothing could have happened between them. Lying wakeful in Mrs Jervis's uncomfortable marriage bed, she could not imagine her here with Ken's father, as they must have been. Her cold disapproval seemed to seep through the very walls.

The sound of a fighter taking off made Winnie crane her neck to catch a glimpse of it. She could just see the Spitfire rising into the air and watched its wheels go up as it climbed rapidly into the evening sky. Now she understood exactly how and why it flew. The air flowing under the wings and the reduced pressure over the camber on the top of them would be combining together to lift the aircraft upwards . . . that was how it worked. The pilot would be pulling back on the control column, forcing the tail down to make the machine climb upwards, like it was doing now . . .

‘Day-dreaming again, aircraftwoman? This won't do.'
The WAAF corporal was glaring at her from the doorway. ‘I've told you before to keep your mind on your work. You're not supposed to stand gazing out of windows when you're on duty.'

Winnie went red. ‘Sorry, Corporal.' She hurried back to her desk.