Daisy's Wars (20 page)

‘This is my brother, Freddy,’ Dotty said with obvious pride. ‘He’s a pilot.’

Freddy held her hand in both of his and when she looked at him she saw he had the same bright, dark eyes and brown hair as his sister. A very good-looking boy, she thought, even if he did have
Par’s nose. The rest of the young men stood watching her, waiting to be introduced, one or two with the kind of looks in their eyes she was used to, others slightly shy. However, one man
stayed at the back, looking away from her except for a few swift glances that she felt rather than saw. As she shook hands with the others she felt him there, like an electric presence, and when
she finally had to shake hands with him there was the strangest sensation. Suddenly her mind was full of a host of confusing feelings and she was struggling to separate them. It wasn’t that
she had known him before, she didn’t believe in that kind of romantic nonsense. It wasn’t even that there was an instant attraction: she didn’t know what that meant. It was more a
feeling of peace than of falling madly in love at first sight. Not that she believed in love, let alone love at first sight, she had no use for either one, but in the moments when their hands met
she felt a peace. It was the only word she could ever come up with to describe it, yet there was an excitement as well; and just how did she reconcile those opposing emotions when she didn’t
understand them? Added to the confusion was a kind of desperation to be gone, a feeling of wanting to escape, and she had to concentrate on her breathing to stop herself turning and running.

With barely a glance at the man – what was his name? – she accepted Freddy’s invitation to sit beside him at the dinner table, and managed to put up with the usual boyish
banter – ‘Trust you, Skipper!’ ‘Hey, we didn’t vote on that!’ ‘Pulling rank again, Frederick!’ – the kind of remarks that normally had her
employing a glance that would freeze them to the marrow. All she could think of was keeping away from the last chap, whatever his name was, then she realised that she didn’t know what he
looked like either. Nothing of his features had registered, so how would she know him if he approached her later? You’ll know all right, she said to herself, feeling her eyes being drawn to
the end of the long table and glancing up quickly to see him there, glancing at her then away again.

She decided to keep her eyes down so that she could only see those on either side of her, not that it was difficult to limit her gaze with the amazing food and amounts of it on offer. There was
pork, beef, chicken, duck, and that was all she recognised, with various vegetables and a confusing array of knives, forks, spoons and glasses on the table. She remembered Joan Johnstone telling
her that dinner-table etiquette was simple, you just started at the outside and worked your way in. So that’s what she did. ‘Act the part,’ she heard Joan’s voice in her
head. ‘That’s all it is, Daisy, acting.’ And Daisy found herself thinking ‘Wait till I tell Joan about this!’

Suddenly she stopped, spoon halfway to her mouth, remembering that Joan was no longer there, but gone. Completely and forever. She hadn’t reached the personal grief stage yet; she was
grappling with the nothingness where her family and Joan should be, trying not to dwell on the thought of them all just being dead, because if she did so she had to force down an accompanying wave
of panic that she would never –
never
– see them again.

‘Is the soup too hot, Daisy, dear?’ Mar said at her side.

‘Just a little,’ she smiled, putting her spoon down again, bemused and confused by the tumble of emotions all happening inside her at once. There was the horror of losing everyone
who mattered to her, and yet whoever this new chap was, he had brought a kind of electricity to the air that she had never experienced before.

After the lavish dinner there was lots of good-natured chat and teasing, with Daisy making sure she kept a safe distance from the young man. She found she could keep track of him just by feeling
that he was nearby, and then she would move away. She had the curious illusion that everyone else was standing still and the entire room was in black and white, with only him and her moving and in
colour. He eventually caught up with her, as somehow she had always known he would.

‘I have the feeling that you’re avoiding me,’ he said shyly.

‘Now why would I do that?’ she asked evenly, registering his deep tan, blue eyes and fairish, hair.

‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ he said, laughing gently.

Australian accent? she thought.

‘Maybe you just don’t like me,’ he suggested, looking at her.

‘Well, why would you think that? I don’t even know you, Mr … ?’

‘Frank Moran,’ he replied. ‘Royal Australian Air Force.’

Moran? she thought. Isn’t that
Irish?
You’d think I’d have registered
that
first time round.

‘Oh,’ she said, in a disinterested voice.

He laughed. ‘You’re thinking. “Another Fly Boy on the make”, aren’t you?’

‘I wasn’t, strangely enough,’ she said quietly, casually looking around the room as though for someone, anyone else, a technique she had perfected to deflect unwanted male
attention. ‘And I really wouldn’t advise it if you are. The big, brave flying-ace thing has no effect on me.’

‘Ouch!’ he said. Then, ‘What do you do?’

‘I’m an RTO at RAF Langar,’ she said, trying not to sound as pleased with herself as she felt.

‘So you’ll be in the tower, talking to pilots?’ he asked.

‘That’s the general idea.’

‘Maybe we’ll have a proper conversation one day,’ he said. ‘I fly a Spitfire.’

‘I doubt it, then,’ Daisy smiled tightly back at him. ‘We’re a Bomber Command Station.’

‘You could still find yourself talking to a Spit pilot,’ he grinned.

‘I’ll make a point of looking forward to that,’ she replied in a deliberately weary voice.

He looked at her seriously. ‘Would you rather I just left you alone?’ he asked.

‘To be perfectly honest, I would,’ Daisy said calmly. ‘No offence, but I spend my working life surrounded by Fly Boys, I really am immune to every line you can think
of.’

‘Maybe I wasn’t trying to spin you line; maybe I just thought you’d be pleasant to talk to.’

Daisy looked him straight in the eye. ‘Yes,’ she said coldly, ‘that sounds
very
likely. But don’t worry, everyone makes mistakes.’

Then she turned her head away as though still looking for that anyone else in the room rather than him, so she didn’t see him move off; but she felt it and was relieved that he had gone.
Despite her outer coolness she felt confused, disturbed even, which scared her in a way, the days were long gone when she could be thrown off-balance. There was a feeling deep inside her that she
had to keep this man away from her, a conviction that this thing had to be nipped in the bud.

And what was this thing, exactly? Attraction? Yes, she conceded, pretending to sip the fizzy cider, it was attraction, like metal to a magnet, there was no way of denying it, but it made her
want to flee, not hang around for more of him. Even so, she couldn’t help smiling to herself at the impression she had given him of the work she did, when the only time she had been in the
tower at Langar the Squadron Leader hadn’t known who or what she was and had told her to go away for a few days and he’d try to find out.

After the dinner party had ended Dotty followed Daisy into her room, and Daisy’s heart fell. She wanted to go to sleep in that beautiful, soft, warm bed in that silent,
comfortable room, but she knew that Dotty was the kind of person who had to wind down before she could sleep, and as she was responsible for providing Daisy with all this luxury, she couldn’t
bring herself to throw Dotty out. The night’s events were discussed, each young man’s character, action and conversation dissected, with Daisy supplying the occasional response when
required, a skill she was perfecting.

‘You and that Spitfire chap didn’t seem to hit it off very well,’ Dotty said.

‘Who?’

‘Frank Moran.’

‘Which one was he?’ Daisy asked.

‘The one you were talking to last. I’ve been just dying to meet him. Freddy’s been talking about him forever, he’s terribly well-known you know.’

‘Is he?’

‘Cripes, yes! Didn’t he tell you?’

‘Tell me what?’ That was another skill she was picking up: not completely answering the question asked.

‘About the Battle of Britain, of course.’

‘No,’ Daisy said honestly, ‘he never mentioned that, as far as I can recall. I wasn’t really listening to him, to be honest.’

‘Well, he flew a Spit in the Battle of Britain, and Freddy says that out of one thousand men over four hundred were killed, but Frank was in it all the way through. He had a tremendous
kill-rate, so Freddy says.’

Daisy felt crushed and ashamed of the way she had spoken to him, and she was glad she was hearing this in darkness – darkness had long been her friend – so that Dotty wouldn’t
see her blushing. ‘Mm,’ she said sleepily.

‘Oh, Daisy, you’re almost asleep, I’m being so selfish! See you in the morning.’ Dotty jumped off Daisy’s bed. ‘Night!’ she called.

‘Mm,’ Daisy repeated, then she lay in the lovely darkness and thought, Dear God, to have spoken to a Battle of Britain ace like that! Fair enough that she’d wanted rid of him,
but the man deserved some respect, a little dignity at least.

Then there was Mar. The only outright lie she’d told her was about her family being in New York, but what was she to say? That they had been wiped out by a bomb a week ago and the bits
that had been recovered were buried days ago, and there she was, attending a posh dinner-party in a mansion and chatting as though she hadn’t a care in the world?

At least she had worn black, she thought wryly. Should she have told the truth? What good would that have done anyone, her dead family included? But still, now that she’d told the lie,
there was no way out. She would have to maintain it forever-more, though it wouldn’t cause any problems that she could see. She was coping with it in her own way, she told herself, as was her
right, but somewhere in her heart there was a doubt that she couldn’t locate because she didn’t want to.

Next morning both girls had a lie-in before a breakfast consisting of eggs – boiled, fried, poached and scrambled – bacon, tomatoes, fried bread, kidneys,
mushrooms, sausages, porridge with cream, kippers, and something called kedgeree that Daisy had never come across before. Once again the amount and array of food shocked her, and Dotty watched her
with a look of misery on her face. They were alone, Par and Mar were out with Freddy and his friends.

‘Daisy, I feel really rotten about this,’ Dotty said.

‘About what?’

‘All this food. You see, the farm produces most of it, not the fish, of course, a friend of Par’s sends that down from Scotland. Par says what good would it do if we did without it,
there isn’t so much that it would make the slightest dent if we gave it all away. And we do keep the estate workers fed with it, it’s not as if we hoard it all to ourselves.’

‘Dotty, relax,’ Daisy smiled, tucking into her eggs. ‘I’m not complaining, I’d fight a duel with my own grandmother for this egg.’

‘But you won’t tell the others, will you, at Langar, I mean? Please? I’d hate them to find out and treat me like a toff. That’s why I asked for the car to come to the
station rather than the base, it’ll drop us there on the way back, too. People can be strange when they see the Rolls, and I don’t want them to hate me because of all this.’ She
looked around at her luxurious home and grimaced, and Daisy laughed at her.

‘Your secret is safe with me,’ she replied. ‘Who knows, I might need you to cover up for me one of these days.’ She looked at Dotty’s serious expression and
laughed. ‘Anyway, I’m your partner in crime now, I’ve eaten the forbidden food.’

The next two days were spent walking, cycling and talking in the clear, quiet air. It was a million miles away from the life Daisy now led, and much more than a million away
from Newcastle. You could hear birds singing and, in the distance, the sound of cows and ewes calling to their young. If Daisy could get away from Dotty she could stand alone, watching the lambs
leaping around together as though they had springs on their feet, and for some reason the grass seemed greener and lusher than she had ever noticed before. Along a country lane she found a pond
with ducks and returned later with bread to feed them, feeling guilty, knowing that food was in short supply everywhere, then thinking that Rose Cottage existed in another world, a world of plenty,
even for ducks. Sometimes she wandered alone, but mostly she went with the other young people who were there.

Daisy tried to think of ways to make amends with the Australian but decided she couldn’t actually apologise, that would leave her in a vulnerable position, open to his advances. He
didn’t make any, though, merely exchanging the fewest words possible when their paths crossed, much to her relief.

He watched her, though; she could feel that, and wondered why the sensation should be different. She had been watched by males before, after all. It was different, that was all she could say, it
just was, and she couldn’t work out why. But the rest of it, the calm, quiet countryside, she could get used to that, she decided. If she survived the war, and many wouldn’t
…

She lowered her head – many hadn’t – then she looked up again, over the green fields. If she survived, she wanted to live in the country. This was where the new Daisy
belonged.

As they were leaving after three days of peace, quiet and comfort, Mar drew her aside.

‘Daisy, I want you to know that you can come here any time you want, whenever you have leave you don’t want to spend in London, though I know you’ll be in great demand there
for parties and fun. Doesn’t matter if Dotty is here or not, if you need to be quiet, just let me know and I’ll send the car for you.’

Daisy was overwhelmed and hugged Mar.

‘And may I ask you a favour?’

‘Of course,’ Daisy said, ‘anything.’

‘It’s about Dotty,’ Mar said quietly. ‘She’s a bubbly little thing, always has been, much more than the rest of us, and that’s saying something. I have no
idea why they should think she could handle being a medical orderly, and I’m afraid she might not be able to, that’s the thing. I have this fear that she won’t admit it.
She’s always been overshadowed a bit by Freddy, he’s the kind of chap who excels at everything he tries, while Dotty has to work at it, so if she’s struggling she won’t say
because she’ll think she’s a failure, do you see?’