Down Daisy Street (41 page)
She put the question to Alec, but not until they had climbed the hill and were actually about to enter the cathedral. It made him laugh but he said he supposed that a lifetime of hauling themselves up the hill must have toughened the inhabitants of the Close, since he had never seen anyone collapse by the wayside yet, and he often came up here to enjoy the quiet and beauty of the place. He proved his point by giving her a tour of the cathedral and showing how familiar he was with every nook and cranny of the place. Kathy was impressed and delighted with the beauty of it and entranced by the Lincoln Imp, though she nearly broke her back as Alec manoeuvred her into a position whence she could look up at the elaborately carved rafters and see the Imp’s small face peering down at her, seeming as amused at her strange position as she was by his.
By the time they left the cathedral they were both hungry, and Alec suggested that they should have a sort of high tea at a café he knew. It was at the bottom of Steep Street and soon they were ensconced in a dark little tearoom, eating their way through baked beans on toast, a plateful of bread and margarine and some fancy cakes which Kathy decided, after one bite, were probably made of sawdust. And whilst they ate, they talked. Kathy felt that she was getting to know Alec for the first time, know what made him angry and what made him sad; what gave him satisfaction and what made him laugh. He told her about bombing raids over Germany, trying to relate incidents which were funny, or even scary, but had turned out all right in the end. It was at this point that Kathy noticed how often he put his left hand to his face, shielding his eye almost as though the light hurt it. She pretended to be concentrating on her food but watched him covertly with quick little glances until she realised that his left eyelid kept fluttering uncontrollably and that every now and then the left side of his face was forced into a spasm so severe and prolonged that she could scarcely fail to notice it. Hastily, Kathy began to talk about Site 21. She told him about ACW Smith, who had got in the way of one of the new concrete bollards one windy night and had broken her foot as a result. She told of other girls riding the tail guy, despite its being strictly forbidden, whilst she worried herself sick in case someone became too scared to let go and got carried away by Betty Blimp up to four thousand feet. It hadn’t happened – she hoped it never would – but it was a magnificent feeling being swept giddily into the air provided you let go when you were only six feet or so above the ground. She told him of Annie, the cook, who was petrified of mice and who had screamed the place down and demanded an armed escort when one of the girls had put a pink and white sugar mouse just inside the flour barrel. There was the night in their Nissen hut when an NCO had stripped the blankets off ACW Shaw to find an embarrassed airman in the bed with her, and another night when someone had poured too much Brasso into the recalcitrant tortoise stove and five Waafs had ended up looking like a Black and White Minstrel Show.
Her talk relaxed him, she could see, and when she suggested a visit to the cinema he agreed gladly. They went to the Odeon, simply because it was nearest, but it turned out to be an unfortunate choice. A war film –
Target for Tonight
– was showing and halfway through the performance Kathy glanced at her escort’s face, so near her own since he had his arm about her shoulders, and saw, with real distress, that tears were rolling silently down his cheeks.
Target for Tonight
– was showing and halfway through the performance Kathy glanced at her escort’s face, so near her own since he had his arm about her shoulders, and saw, with real distress, that tears were rolling silently down his cheeks.
She said nothing but leaned up and gently kissed his jawline and was astonished, and even a little frightened, by his reaction. He turned in his seat, putting both arms about her and hugging her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. He muttered that no one knew . . . no one understood . . . he couldn’t explain how he felt at the thought of doing another op.
Kathy found herself comforting him as though she, and not he, were the older. ‘Never mind, never mind,’ she whispered softly, for the film was still continuing and other members of the audience would have been quick to shush her had she spoken out loud. ‘Why, you and Jimmy are the best navigator and rear gunner in the service, and your pilot is first rate – you said so.’
Alec did not answer but continued to clutch her convulsively, only gradually relaxing as the scene changed to a romantic shot of two young people, immaculately uniformed and hand in hand, strolling through a field of standing corn in a way which, Alec told her afterwards, would cause any self-respecting farmer to mow them down with a machine gun, if one were handy.
When the film ended, they left the cinema, still entwined, and Alec said he would walk her back to her digs. ‘We’ll meet up first thing in the morning, as soon as there’s transport going into Lincoln,’ he said eagerly. ‘Oh, Kathy, it’s been a grand day; the best I’ve had since the war started. And the forecast is good for tomorrow so I’ll buy us a picnic and we’ll take that boat on the river. I’ve had enough of war for a bit and there’s nothing I’d like better than to see fields and hedgerows, cows and ponies. If we hire the boat for the whole day, then we can moor up somewhere pretty and take a look at the countryside. Would you like that?’
Kathy admitted that she would like it very much indeed and for a while the two of them strolled on in silence, but when they reached Mrs Bridges’s house and Kathy turned to bid Alec goodnight he clutched her fiercely, murmuring into her hair: ‘Do you
have
to go in? I wish – I wish we could spend the night together. Oh, not together in that sense,’ he added hastily, as Kathy stiffened a little, ‘but just together, beside one another, holding hands, that sort of thing. Somehow, contact, even just holding hands, stops me thinking about . . . about . . .’
have
to go in? I wish – I wish we could spend the night together. Oh, not together in that sense,’ he added hastily, as Kathy stiffened a little, ‘but just together, beside one another, holding hands, that sort of thing. Somehow, contact, even just holding hands, stops me thinking about . . . about . . .’
‘Oh, Alec, I wish we could,’ Kathy said wistfully. ‘I’m sure it would all be perfectly innocent, but Mrs Bridges is ever so strict and I had to promise not to bring young men in when I paid for the room.’ She glanced at her wristwatch, which had once belonged to her father and looked very masculine on her small wrist. ‘It’s after midnight, too, but I’m sure she’ll still be awake listening.’
‘Well, I’ll have to get myself kipped down on a bench somewhere,’ Alec said ruefully, ‘because the last transport went at eleven. Never mind, it’s a fine enough night, though I dare say it’ll get mortal cold towards dawn.’
Kathy hesitated, looking up into his face. She hated to abandon him but could see no alternative. Mrs Bridges was not the sort of woman to see her rules flouted and Kathy remembered tales told by other Waafs of landladies listening for a telltale footfall which meant that more than one person was quietly climbing her stairs. But another look at Alec’s face made her decide to be brave. Poor Alec had suffered enough. He had told her how hellishly difficult he found it to sleep at night when they were not due to go on a bombing raid. The raids turned one’s life upside down, he explained, so that one got used to sleeping during the day and being active at night. When a break in routine occurred and the crew of Bare Nell got four or five days off, they all had great difficulty in sleeping and when they did, at last, get to sleep towards morning, they suffered from frightful nightmares in which they had fallen asleep whilst the great Wellington roared over France and Germany and was shot up by enemy aircraft before they could do anything about it. Such dreams usually ended with them jumping out of the plane, realising too late that they had failed to strap on their parachutes and plunging sickeningly towards the ground. They would wake, drenched in sweat and terrified, quite unable to return to sleep.
‘If you like . . . if you want to take the risk . . . you can come up with me,’ she said, her voice trembling only a little. ‘It’s almost bound to rain before morning, judging by the clouds . . . oh, but Alec, if she catches us, she’ll turn me out! Not that it matters, because two can share a park bench as well as one, I suppose.’
Alec laughed, put both arms round her and began to kiss her. This was not the gentle, friendly kiss of earlier in the day, but a fierce and much more exciting one. When he held her back from him, Kathy was aware that she was not only breathless, but rather disappointed. That kiss had been the beginning of something and she found herself resenting the fact that he could stop without any apparent distress, whereas she felt as though she had been abruptly drenched in cold water. Like when they chuck a bucket of the stuff over two dogs who’ve been fighting, or making love, she told herself with an inward grin. Oh well, at least I’m not trying to be all romantic!
But now Alec was pushing her gently towards the front door. ‘I can’t risk you getting into trouble and being turned out,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘Is there a shed round the back? I see there’s a little lane leads round to something. I’ll be all right there.’
But having made her decision, Kathy was determined. She shook her head chidingly at him. ‘We’ve had a lovely day, Alec, and I won’t have either of us made miserable when we could be happy together. I’ll make a tiny crack in the blackout curtains, just for a minute; there’s a sort of outbuilding below my window, and I’m sure you could scramble up on it and get in that way. If not, then I’ll call out to Mrs Bridges that I’ve left something in the downstairs hall and I’ll let you in the front door and you can come in and sneak up the stairs after me.’
For the first time since he had wept, the wicked twinkle was back in Alec’s eyes. ‘I can climb up by a drainpipe if it’s near your window,’ he said exultantly. ‘Oh, Kathy, you’re a princess – and much prettier than Jane, whatever you may think.’
Kathy was beginning to laugh, to tell him that the moonlight must have gone to his head, but he put a finger across her lips, unlocked the door and pushed it open, and gave her back the key. He reached out and drew a hand lovingly down the side of her face and across her chin and then, soft-footed, made his way down the path and into the darkness.
Kathy went as quietly as she could up the stairs and into her room. Mr and Mrs Bridges – she assumed that there was a Mr Bridges – must be asleep since there was no light under any of the doors on the upper landing. She let herself into her room, closed the door softly behind her and switched on the light. She crossed the room quietly and made a tiny crack in the blackout curtains, then retreated to the door and switched off the light. The small room was stuffy, smelling slightly of mothballs and cooked cabbage, and she opened the window wide, reflecting that whether Alec came or not she would be glad of the fresh air.
It was odd, standing there in the dark with the lighter square of the window before her, wondering what would happen next. She thought it quite likely that, in fact, nothing would occur; Alec would go off and find himself a bench somewhere and she would be left wondering whether he had changed his mind because she did not sufficiently attract him or because he liked her too much to want to get her into trouble.
After a few minutes, she began to undress, smiling to herself at the contradiction in her thoughts. She was used to getting changed in the dark so it presented few problems, but just as she was beginning to put on her regulation pyjamas she heard the slightest of slight scrapings from the direction of the open window. She turned towards it, suddenly aware that her heart was thumping uncomfortably. Whatever was she doing? She, cool, level-headed Corporal Kathy Kelling, who was proud of her record in the air force, was about to behave like any of the little sluts at No. 21 Balloon Site, who would crawl into bed with anyone and boast about sleeping with a different fellow every night of the week.
But this isn’t like that, Kathy thought wildly as she did up the last button of her pyjamas, and saw Alec step neatly over the sill. This is due to him missing the last transport and he’s in a pretty bad state because his kite was shot up and, anyway, we’re not going to do what the bad girls do, we just want to be together.
Standing awkwardly beside the undisturbed bed, she waited for Alec to speak or to take her in his arms but to her astonishment he shot straight past her, a finger to his lips, and stood in the shadows beside the door. Kathy was about to speak, to ask him what he was doing, when she, too, heard the footsteps. Someone was approaching her door along the landing.
She had no time to wonder what was happening before the door shot open. Mrs Bridges stood there, the light behind her emphasising her large and bulky figure. Before she had thought, Kathy had said angrily: ‘Put off that bloody light! Don’t you know there’s a war on? What on earth’s the matter, Mrs Bridges? Is it a raid? I’ve only just come in but I’m sure I haven’t heard the siren.’
This full frontal attack seemed to take Mrs Bridges by surprise. She stepped back with a mutter of apology and clicked off the landing light, though she did not go away. In fact, she came a little further into the room, saying grudgingly: ‘I’m sorry, miss, I’m sure, if I’ve been mistook, but I could have sworn I heard something . . . it sounded like someone clambering about on the lean-to kitchen roof.’ She glared around the room by the light of the moon coming through the window, at the still unrumpled bed, at the tiny curtained-off area where Kathy was, presumably, to hang her clothes, and then actually bent and peered under the bed.
Kathy felt as furious as though she was not indeed guilty of precisely the crime Mrs Bridges suspected. She felt a tide of heat invade her cheeks and turned towards her landlady. ‘Just what do you thing you are doing, Mrs Bridges?’ she enquired frigidly. ‘Not that I need to ask, because it’s pretty damned obvious. Here, let me help you.’ She crossed the small room in a couple of strides and whipped back the curtain, revealing only her uniform hanging in the tiny space provided. Then she seized the only chair and turned it upside down, letting its legs clang against the still wide open door. ‘And I assure you that if anyone comes through that window you’ll hear a scream loud enough to wake the dead. All right?’
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