The Hidden Years (9 page)

Lizzie felt her fingers recoil from contact with the sharp
shiny stuff in distaste. The only belts she was familiar with were soft
leather, often worn, with the stitching gone in places, and always in
dull browns and greys.

'Give it 'ere, Jean,' Rosie instructed, obviously enjoying
her role as transformer-in-chief. 'Now breathe in, Lizzie, while I get
it fastened… My goodness, you are thin, aren't you? Even
Jean can't get it fastened on that first notch, can you, Jean? No, you
can't look at yourself yet,' Rosie told her firmly as she tried to step
to one side so that she could see her reflection in the dormitory's one
spotted mirror.

'What you need now is a bit of colour in your face. Some
nice bright red lipstick and a bit of rouge…'

'And some blacking on her lashes,' someone suggested.
'What size shoes does she take?'

'Threes,' Lizzie said weakly.

'So small… well, it will have to be Mary's
white courts, then… You take a four, don't you, Mary? We'll
have to stuff the toes. Where's he meeting you, love, outside?'

Lizzie shook her head. 'On the back lane to the hospital.'

'She's not walking all down there, not in my white
courts,' Mary objected indignantly.

'No, well, she'll have to wear her own shoes and then
change just before she meets him. Leave her own hidden—she
can pick them up in the morning.'

Lizzie wanted to object that it wasn't necessary for Mary
to make such a sacrifice. Aunt Vi had always told her that a lady never
wore white shoes, but it was difficult to speak with Rosie determinedly
outlining her mouth with what felt like sticky paste, and someone else
spitting on a cake of mascara ready to attend to her eyelashes.

It was a good half-hour before they were satisfied with
their efforts and ready to let her look in the mirror.

When she did, the image confronting her was so totally
unfamiliar that she could only stare at it in confused disbelief. She
looked so much older, so much more worldly, so… so common, a
sharp inner voice derided, but with the circle of expectant faces
watching her she could only swallow down her dismay and weakly thank
them.

'Just you remember,' Rosie warned her, all motherly
concern, 'if he tries it on, you make him wait. Show him that you
expect to be treated with a bit of respect. They're all the
same… All after one thing… and they'll tell you
anything to get it…'

She wanted to protest that they were wrong, that Kit was
different… but her feelings were too new… too
precious to be shared with anyone else.

Someone, she rather thought it was Mary, provided her with
a white cardigan to wear over the dress, which mercifully buttoned up
to the throat, and then she was being escorted downstairs and outside,
so that it was impossible for her to plead that she couldn't accept
their generosity and change back into her own things.

Lizzie couldn't cycle to meet Kit, not wearing her
borrowed finery, and at first she found it disconcerting to feel the
freer movements of her breasts as she walked.

That the sensation of her flesh pressing against this
cotton was not entirely unpleasant shocked her, as did the sudden
illuminating knowledge that when Kit took her in his arms she would be
able to feel his body against her own separated only by such a flimsy
barrier.

Such thoughts were forbidden, disgusting, Aunt Vi would
have said, but it wasn't disgust that welled up inside her. Far from
it. It was the same fizzing, exciting sensation she had experienced
when Kit had pressed his lips against hers, the same curling tautness
deep down inside her, which made her stop walking and instinctively
press the palm of her hand low down against her body, until she
realised what she was doing and went scarlet with shock and guilt.

She knew all about what happened between men and
women—it would have been hard not to, when the other girls
gave such graphic and detailed descriptions of their boyfriends'
prowess or lack of it—but she had never realised until now
that the physical intimacies they had described, and which she had
found rather nauseating, could be responsible for the kind of delicious
ache that was tormenting her body and making her hurry eagerly to meet
Kit.

She had set off in plenty of time and, when she reached
the arranged rendezvous, she was able to slip out of her own brogues
and replace them with Mary's white shoes, which looked very large and
ungainly on her own slender feet.

The only thing she had not been provided with was a pair
of the much prized stockings, and she had firmly refused to allow her
helpers to draw lines down the backs of her legs in imitation of
stocking seams. Her ankles looked very fragile and pale, she decided,
eyeing them uncertainly, but her woollen stockings would have looked
ridiculous with Rosie's dress.

Time passed. She seemed to have been waiting for hours.
Her stomach tensed and she began to wonder if Kit wasn't coming after
all. She had no watch and no way of telling what time it was. She
couldn't stay standing here for ever, she told herself, thankful that
the lane was seldom used so that there was no one about to witness her
humiliation.

She could just imagine the other girls' reactions when she
went back and told them that Kit hadn't turned up. Her eyes stung with
tears. It had never occurred to her that this might happen. She had
been so certain, so sure that Kit felt as she did…

She was just about to retrieve her shoes when she heard
the sound of a car engine. Her heart bounded, her pulses thudding
frantically as she froze and waited.

When she saw the familiar bonnet of Kit's car coming round
the corner she almost cried with relief, unaware of how very easily he
was interpreting her reaction as he brought the car to a standstill
beside her and smiled warmly at her.

Old Edward wouldn't think her such an innocent now, Kit
reflected cynically as he studied her. Quite a transformation.

He looked at her dark red mouth and felt a kick of
sensation burst inside him. Sex was like a drug to Kit— the
more he had, the more he wanted—and since he had been
grounded five days ago for disobeying orders and breaking formation to
chase off an enemy plane in a dogfight over the Channel, sex had been
the only outlet he had had for the compulsive energy that drove him.

'Sorry I'm late,' he apologised, jumping out of the car
and coming towards her.

Relief shone in her eyes, making them glitter with the
tears which had been about to fall.

'You look wonderful,' he lied, making her wonder if
perhaps after all the other girls had been right and that it was she
who had been wrong to have had doubts about her appearance.

'So wonderful, in fact, that I've simply got to do
this…'

Kit was no fool. No matter how willing the woman, they
still liked all the trappings. And this one was more nervous than
willing. He felt her tremble as he took her in his arms and felt his
body tense with elation. It gave him an extra thrill to know that he
would be the first, that no one else had ever touched her or kissed
her. Her mouth beneath his betrayed her inexperience. 'No one's ever
kissed you before, have they?' he said, crushing her body against his
own, revelling in his power over her, her innocence, her gullibility.
He placed his hand on her heart and felt its frantic beat. His
fingertips were just brushing the underside of her breast, causing her
both to tense and to tremble. His tongue snaked over her glossy red
lips, making Lizzie shiver frantically again as his touch caressed her
already sensitised flesh. She was so responsive to him, so dizzyingly
aware of him. They had looked at one another and immediately she had
known without words… without explanation—she had
known.

Kit was biting at her mouth now, almost too roughly, but
she guessed that it was because he, like her, had been overwhelmed by
their love. She felt his tongue press against the closed line of her
mouth and obediently parted her lips. She had heard the other girls
talking about this kind of kissing, but had never thought that she
herself could experience it without intense revulsion. Instead she
discovered, as Kit's tongue penetrated the moist intimacy of her mouth,
that the slow caressing thrusts he was making were sending her dizzy
with the waves of pleasure which seemed to be rolling over her in ever
increasing ferocity.

'I can't make love to you here,' Kit told her thickly. 'My
God, you're dynamite, do you know that…? You and I are going
to be so good together… so very good.'

To Lizzie it was a statement of commitment for their
future, an avowal of love. Cynically Kit watched the effect his words
were having on her, loving her vulnerability to him, his power over
her. Fleetingly he wished he had more time to spend with her. There
were things he could show her—teach her. His body grew hot
and hard, the intensity of his desire for her catching him by surprise.

'Come on… let's go somewhere more private,' he
commanded, picking her up and carrying her over to the car.

As he held her against his body, Lizzie felt the hardness
of his physical arousal, and her senses thrilled to the knowledge that
she
had done this to him. She knew from the other girls' conversation what
that hardness meant; what she hadn't known before was how exciting it
would be to know that she could have that effect on the man she loved,
nor how much she would want to press her body against his, to take that
hardness deep within her own flesh so that she could prolong and
intensify the fierce, aching pleasure being close to it brought.

As he lifted her into the car, either by accident or
design, his hands slid up over her body, fleetingly caressing her
breasts.

'Where can we go?' he demanded. 'You know this area better
than I do… I'd take you back to where I'm staying but the
landlady…'

Take her back to his room, he meant… She wasn't
ready for that yet, Lizzie acknowledged. It smacked too much of what
she had always considered to be the rather sordid intimacies of the
other girls. She wanted this to be different… It
was
different, of course. She and Kit were in love with one another, and
after the war… She took a deep breath, her heart pounding
with the heady excitement of anticipating the future…their
future, and then hard on its heels came the sharp new fear experienced
by every woman whose man risked his life in the defence of his country.
What if Kit should die—what if all they had was here and now?
What if there
was
no future, only these few
precious hours? It was a thought she could not bear to
contemplate—not now—not ever.

'There is a place,' she told him huskily. 'It's just
inside the hospital grounds, but no one ever goes there. We'll have to
walk, though.'

The place she had in mind was a small, neglected
summer-house in an overgrown glade, hidden deep in the tangled
undergrowth of the neglected grounds. Even the path to it was overgrown
with saplings and brambles. She had discovered it by accident and often
went there when she wanted privacy. She had half contemplated taking
Edward there, knowing he would enjoy it as she had… She had
seen the first primroses flower there on the banks of its quiet pool,
followed by wild bluebells, but the difficulties of pushing Edward's
chair down the overgrown and soft earth path had made her decide
against suggesting such an outing. Now she was fiercely glad, because
now it would be
their
secret place, known to them
alone… a sacred temple to their love.

Kit parked his car at the end of the lane. When he lifted
her out of her seat Lizzie clung shyly to him, blushing as he looked
down at her mouth. The red lipstick was gone now, but her lips glowed
with their own colour, softened and swollen from his earlier kiss.

'Mm… innocent little thing, aren't
you…? Not that I mind.' His hands slid down her back, past
her waist and over her buttocks, squeezing them as he lifted her into
his own body and moved urgently against her.

Dizzy with the tumult of sensations inside her, Lizzie
could only cling to him, innocently offering herself to him, wanting
only to please him.

When he released her, she felt disorientated and bereft.

'Which way is it…this place?' Kit was
demanding, hoarsely.

As she pointed in the direction of the glade, Lizzy
realised guiltily that Mary's shoes were going to be ruined. They had
to cross two fields and then fight their way down the overgrown pathway
to get to the glade and Mary's courts were not designed for such stuff.

Neither, it seemed, were Kit's flannels and blazer. He
frowned impatiently when the brambles caught in the fabric, and
complained that she might have warned him what to expect. His
irritation jarred a little but Lizzie dismissed those feelings.

The path seemed more overgrown than it had been the last
time she had visited the glade a few weeks ago, but at last she could
see the glint of sunlight on water through the tangled undergrowth and
branches and when at last they broke through into the silence of the
sun-dappled clearing she asked breathlessly, 'Will this be all right?'

'Well, we certainly won't be disturbed,' Kit told her,
examining their surroundings, and walking towards the dilapidated
summer-house. Personally he would have preferred the comfort of a
double bed, but beggars couldn't be choosers and the woman running the
boarding-house where he was staying had made it plain that she did not
allow her guests to bring in 'friends'.

'Pity you didn't think to bring a rug,' Kit added as he
studied their surroundings.

'But it
is
private, isn't it?'
Lizzie asked him anxiously, suddenly desperate to placate him and win
some word of approval, knowing that she was somehow responsible for
that frown of displeasure which had banished the warmth of his smile
and hating herself for it.