Bluebirds (70 page)

‘You didn't let me know you were home,' he said. ‘But I found out.'

‘You shouldn't have come,' she told him. ‘I said I don't want to see you any more.'

He took no notice. ‘You've been ill, haven't you? They told me that too in the pub.' He searched her face. ‘You look pale.'

‘I'm better now. I'm leavin' tomorrow.'

Gran, nosy as ever, called out from her chair. ‘Who's yew talkin' wi', Winnie? Who's that thare?'

In the end he stayed to tea, though she tried to stop it. He sat in Ken's old place, eating her mother's cake and scones, and, except for Gran who watched him beadily and in silence, they all liked him, she could tell. He was charming to Mum, nice to Ruth and Laura, and he listened to her father grumbling about the Americans.

‘Winnie went to a dance at the Americans base,' Ruth said brightly.

‘Did she now?' Taffy's eyes turned on her.

She wouldn't tell him exactly where she was being posted, but Ruth told him that too.

‘Flaxton's not far at all,' he said to her as he left after tea. ‘There'll be no reason why we can't see each other now.'

‘Yes there will. I don't want to see you. Why won't
you understand that? An' I don't want you to come here again.'

He looked at her with his burning eyes. ‘You don't know what you do want, Winnie. Or what's good for you. You never have. But
I
do. I've always known.'

She opened the door for him. ‘Please go now.'

He stopped on the threshold. ‘Why did you go to that dance, Winnie? You're not that sort of girl . . . like the ones who go with Yanks. Don't go again.'

‘I'll do as I please. You've no right to tell me anythin'.'

She shut the door on him indignantly. Gran looked up as she went back into the kitchen.

‘He've a silver tongue thet thare furrin fellah. An' bad eyes. Yew moind 'm, Winnie. Thass what oi say. Yew moind 'm right well.'

The daffodils were in full bloom in the rough grass at the end of the lawn, making a brilliant yellow splash against the new green, but David Palmer scarcely noticed them. He stood staring out of the drawing-room window of his wife's Gloucestershire house where he felt as alien as he did in her house in London. Behind him he could hear the clink of bottle on glass as Caroline poured herself another gin. He waited until he knew she had sat down again and then turned round to face her.

‘I have something to say, Caroline. I want a divorce. As soon as it can be arranged.'

He saw the astonishment on her face. Her mouth dropped open and the hand holding her glass froze halfway to her mouth. Then, slowly, her expression was replaced by a different one – of hard-edged amusement. She took a sip of her drink and considered him, her head on one side.

‘Are you serious, David?'

‘Perfectly. I'm sorry, but I don't imagine you'll be exactly heartbroken at the idea. Our marriage hasn't meant anything to either of us for a very long time. I would think you'd be quite relieved to be rid of me.'

She smiled at him, that acid-sweet smile he knew so well. ‘Now, there you are quite mistaken. I don't choose to be rid of you at all. I happen to like being married to you, in spite of your bloody RAF. I don't want a divorce and I've no intention of losing you to some other woman. That's what this is all about, isn't it, David? You'd never have considered it otherwise – not in a million years. It's that prissy little WAAF officer at Colston, isn't it? The one you've always fancied. I suppose you've been having an affair and she wants you to marry her now.'

‘As it happens Section Officer Newman is no longer at Colston.'

‘I dare say she isn't. But that doesn't stop you two, does it? Did you get her sent away so it was easier for you to carry on on the quiet? To save your precious reputation?'

He thought for a moment of Felicity's pale and determined face when she had told him that she wanted to be posted away. He had begged her to stay. Pleaded with her. And then she had said that she did not want to see him again.

‘I'll get a divorce,' he had told her, in despair. ‘We could be married . . .'

‘No,' she had said. ‘I couldn't bear to be responsible for breaking up your marriage.'

‘You wouldn't be. It was finished long ago.'

‘It doesn't make any difference,' she had told him. ‘It would mean you breaking your vows . . . and it would be because of me. And a divorce could ruin your career and that means more to you than anything.'

‘Not more than you,' he had told her quietly. ‘Not now.'

He had spoken with perfect truth. He had caught a glimpse now of another life than the RAF – one he had never really known existed. Never thought about. Never dreamed of. Never hoped for. And with that glimpse he had realized that life being married to Caroline was no longer tolerable. It had become insupportable to him. He
must get a divorce, and then he would wait and hope and pray that one day he would be able to persuade Felicity to change her mind. He looked at his wife.

‘You must think what you like, Caroline, but that's not so.'

She began to laugh, but it was a laugh without mirth and with a note of triumph. ‘You randy old goat! She's young enough to be your daughter. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.'

With a sinking heart he realized that she was enjoying the situation. He had foolishly imagined that she would probably welcome a divorce. Now he saw that it had been naïve of him in the extreme to think so. She was enjoying not only the situation, but the power he had now given her over him.

He said evenly: ‘Our marriage is a sham, Caroline, and you know it. I'll give you all the evidence you need to divorce me. It can be arranged –'

‘Oh, I know all about that, darling. You pay someone to be in a hotel room with you and the maid comes in and sees you – it's done all the time. But I'm not letting you get away with that.'

He watched her lighting a cigarette in her casual way – holding the table lighter in both hands and blowing a thin stream of smoke upwards.

‘I'm asking you to be reasonable, Caroline. You've had lovers for years and I've turned a blind eye. It wouldn't be difficult for me to find the evidence to bring a case for divorce against you.'

She was still holding the heavy silver lighter, weighing it in one hand. ‘If you try that, David, I'll defend it. And I'll cross-petition and make damned sure that your little WAAF's name is dragged all across the newspapers. I can see the headlines, can't you? RAF Station Commander cross-petitioned over affair with WAAF . . . Married Group Captain accused by wife of adultery with WAAF officer under his command . . .' She put down the lighter on the table beside her. ‘It'd ruin your career, and you
know it. That's what really surprises me about this. You always minded about your career more than anything else. The bloody RAF always came first with you. I didn't think you had it in you to risk losing that. A divorce – especially a messy one – will mean you'll never make it to the top. Still waters run deep, I suppose. You must love her a lot.'

He moved away from the window and stood looking down at her. ‘I don't love you, and you don't love me. What's the point of all this, Caroline? Why can't we call it a day?'

She smiled up at him sweetly again. ‘Why? Because I'm your wife, David. And you're my husband. For better, for worse, remember? And I happen to want it to stay that way.'

In the early summer of 1943 Virginia and Madge were sent on another special and secret training course. The RAF instructor was young and very keen. He kept bouncing on his heels and rubbing his hands together.

‘This is a top secret new device that could turn the tide of the war in our favour. And its name is
Oboe
.' He paused for effect and then bounced on his heels again and rubbed his hands again. ‘Basically,' he went on, radiating his enthusiasm round the room like an RDF beam, ‘this is a blind bombing aid. The idea is to help our bomber chaps get to the target accurately without actually having to
see
it themselves. Up 'til now it's not been unknown, I regret to say, for them to miss the target altogether, or bomb the wrong jolly one. All a bit hit and miss, really. But we're going to change all that. You all understand about Radio Direction Finding . . . well, this is the same principle, different application. A wonderful new box of tricks to use against the enemy.'

He picked up a piece of chalk and drew a long line with a flourish across the blackboard behind him. ‘Here we have a beam laid by a ground station.' He marked a cross at the start of the line. ‘And here we have an aircraft
flying along precisely at the end of the beam.' He drew a misshapen 'plane at the end of the line. ‘Bit like a conker on a piece of string being whirled about a child's head. Now . . . here we have
another
beam laid by a second ground station . . .' He flourished the chalk again. ‘We call these two stations cat and mouse and where their beams cross, at the
exact
point of intersection, our aircraft must release its bombs. Smack on target! No chance of visual error, you see.
Offensive
radar, that's the difference. We're not just using it to defend ourselves by spotting the enemy popping over here, but taking it into
their
territory as an offensive weapon.'

He had turned round from the blackboard and was doing some more heel-bouncing and hand-rubbing.

‘On recent tests over France it has proved extremely accurate. And we have the perfect aircraft to carry
Oboe
for us – the Mosquito! The Mosquito can fly at three hundred and fifty miles per hour – too fast for the Germans fighters to catch easily – and it can mark from twenty-eight thousand feet, to get the utmost range.
And
it's capable of carrying a four-thousand-pound bomb. A wonderful tool in our hands. The Mosquito will be spearheading the Pathfinder force who are going to mark these targets accurately for the bombers following along behind.' He rubbed his hands together and beamed another smile round. ‘In other words, the hit-and-miss days of bombing are over on any target within
Oboe'
s range. And
you
are going to make sure it's always a hit.'

‘East Kent!' moaned Madge at the end of the course. ‘Stuck out on the cliffs, miles from anywhere again. No transport. Nothing to do. No fun at all.'

They were given leave before reporting for duty. But Virginia did not go home. Instead she went to stay with Madge and her family in the small house in Brighton where the sitting-room had been turned into her dentist father's waiting-room and the dining-room was the surgery. The remaining space was cramped, but Madge's parents and her smaller brother made her feel
welcome and nobody seemed to care very much about how the table was laid or whether they kept their elbows off it. She and Madge went to the cinema twice and they walked along the seafront behind the barbed wire and sat in the sun eating ice-cream cornets. Once, they went past the ice rink where she had watched Neil playing in the hockey match.

In her diary she wrote:
I shall never forget him. There will never be anybody else for me, I know there won't. I still can't forgive Mother for the way she treated him. I don't know if I ever shall. Why, oh why did Neil have to die?

While Madge lay sleeping peacefully, Virginia lay wide awake, remembering.

THE PHONE IN
the rectory hall was ringing. Felicity went from the kitchen to answer it, but as she lifted the earphone off the hook, the roar of a bomber passing overhead drowned the caller's voice. She waited until the noise had died away.

‘Hallo? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you.'

‘Is that you, Titania?'

Her heart leaped. ‘
Speedy!
Is that really you?'

‘I just asked you the same thing, Titania.'

She started to laugh. ‘Well, it
is
me. But, Speedy, oh Speedy . . . I don't believe it! Where have you been all this time? What happened to you? Where are you now? Are you all right?'

‘Which one shall I answer first?'

‘Are you all right?'

‘Never better. Lost a spot of weight, that's all. I've been wandering about France for months on end. Managed to pop back via Spain eventually. I'll tell you all about that later.'

‘But where are you now? You haven't told me that.'

‘Norwich. Not a million miles from you. Fifteen, to be exact. I looked you up on the map. They've given me a nice bit of leave, so I came up here in search of you. Took me a while to track you down . . . when did they shunt you off to the bomber boys in Yorks?'

‘A while ago. I'm on a forty-eight.'

‘I know. They told me. So, I thought I had a chance of seeing you. Thought I might nip over today – if that's all right.'

‘Of course it is. You must stay the night. I don't have to go back 'til tomorrow.'

‘Never thought I'd hear you ask me to do that, Titania.'

‘And meet my father,' she added firmly.

There was a sigh at the other end of the line. ‘Best behaviour and all that . . . I'm on my way.'

He arrived in the red MG, string trailing, and swept up the driveway in a flurry of gravel with George sitting beside him in the passenger seat. Seeing him, back from the dead and as jaunty as ever, made her feel like bursting into tears. He sprang out of the car, George at his heels, and swept her, without hesitation, into his arms, holding her tightly against him. George was barking excitedly. She managed to free herself eventually and held him at arm's length. He was thinner, certainly, but otherwise looked fit and well. The same old Speedy with the same bright and laughing eyes.

‘I still can't quite believe it,' she said at last. ‘I'd almost given you up.'