The Londoners (21 page)

Wishing him joy of his task, Kate tried hard not to remember previous summer evenings when every few yards one or other of her neighbours would have shouted out a cheery hello to her or engaged
her in a few moments of friendly conversation. She opened her garden gate, wryly aware that if it wasn’t for her continuing friendship with Carrie and the fierce support of Miss Godfrey and
Miss Pierce, her disillusionment with the human race would have been total.

The instant she opened the front door her eyes flew to the mat and with a leap of joy she saw that there was a letter for her from Toby. She scooped it up eagerly, opening it with a singing
heart.

She smoothed the letter lovingly and re-read it. He had made no mention of where they should meet because such arrangements were no longer necessary between them. As soon as he arrived home he
spent a courteous and minimum amount of time with his grandfather and then drove immediately over to Magnolia Square where he usually spent an equally courteous amount of time chatting to her
father before whizzing her off for a drink at The Princess of Wales and then up to the West End for a show and a meal, or perhaps to the Hammersmith Palais where they could dance the night away
cheek-to-cheek.

She gazed through the kitchen window, deep in thought. She and Toby loved each other deeply but they were not yet lovers in the true, physical sense of the word. Though he had suggested on more
than one occasion that they spend one of his leaves in the country or at the seaside together, she had always resisted the temptation. She knew that he wanted to marry her and that once his
grandfather was recovered sufficiently from his heart attack for him to be told of their intentions, he
would
marry her. Until now it had never seriously occurred to her that when they did
so she would be anything other than a virgin. Now, nursing her mug of freshly made tea, she wondered why such a notion had been so important to her and realized, with a stab of shock, that it was
important no longer.

Hard on the heels of her momentous realization came another realization. Though she now had complete privacy in her home and there was nothing whatsoever to prevent the two of them from taking
sexual advantage of that privacy, Toby would not wish to do so. He would see such an action as taking advantage of her father’s enforced absence and the magic would be tarnished for them
both.

A small smile touched her lips. It was because Toby was so innately honourable that she loved him so much. He would want the occasion when they first made love to be as perfect and as romantic
as she wanted it to be and although when he arrived home on leave they could immediately drive down to Brighton or somewhere similar, and book into a hotel, precious hours of his leave would be
wasted whilst they did so.

She mentally created a map of south-east England in her mind’s eye. Toby’s RAF camp was at Hornchurch, in Essex. Essex wasn’t so far from London and there would no doubt be
lots of pretty villages nearby. It would make far more sense for her to take the train and to meet him at the camp gates than for him to travel all the way into London and then for the two of them
to travel out of it again.

Utterly sure of the decision she had just made, she went hurriedly in search of pen and paper. If she wrote to him immediately and posted her letter that evening, he would receive it in time.
The coming weekend would be the most wonderful weekend of their lives. A weekend they would never, ever forget.

As she packed a small overnight bag on Friday night someone knocked on the front door. Certain it must be Carrie, Kate hurried to open it, flinging it wide, only to find
herself staring into the rather bemused face of St Mark’s Church vicar, Bob Giles.

‘Sorry to disturb you Katherine, only I have what I imagine is a rather important message for you,’ he said kindly. ‘A Flight Lieutenant Toby Harvey has just telephoned the
vicarage and asked me if I would tell you that he has received your letter and that he will be at Hornchurch this weekend.’ There was no surprise at being used as a glorified messenger-boy in
Bob Giles’ voice. The vicarage was the only house in Magnolia Square with a telephone and he was accustomed to taking emergency messages for his neighbours. ‘He said you would
understand and that there was no need for any reply.’

Kate’s cheeks flushed scarlet. She could understand that Toby had been anxious to let her know that he had received her letter and that their paths weren’t going to cross by his
travelling up to London as she was travelling out to Essex, but having the vicar act as unwitting intermediary for a rendezvous that he would, if he knew of its nature, undoubtedly disapprove of,
embarrassed her deeply.

‘Thank you,’ she said, grateful that she hadn’t already placed her overnight bag by the door, making the true meaning of the message he had just relayed glaringly apparent.

Bob Giles turned to leave and then hesitated, saying as an afterthought, ‘The gentleman in question wouldn’t be a relative of Mr Joss Harvey of Harvey Construction Ltd, would
he?’

Kate felt the colour in her cheeks burn even deeper. ‘Yes,’ she said, certain that the true import of the message he had been asked to deliver would dawn on Mr Giles at any moment,
‘Flight Lieutenant Harvey is his grandson.’

‘Is he, indeed? Well, well. I’d heard he’d joined the RAF and was now a fighter pilot. Those boys are certainly in the thick of it at the moment, aren’t they? Without
them I’m afraid we’d be something of a walkover for Herr Hitler. With them, we’ll remain inviolate. Quite remarkable when you think about it, a mere handful of young boys
defending our little island from the might of Hitler’s bombers.’

With a cheery goodbye wave he walked down the stone steps leading from Kate’s front door to her pathway, still musing over the poetic heroism of the RAF. ‘Reminiscent of
Agincourt,’ Kate heard him say to himself as he walked towards the gate. ‘Quite awe-inspiring. Utterly British. I shall take it as my theme for Sunday’s sermon.’

Kate thankfully closed the door on him and returned to her interrupted task. Her toilet things were packed but she hadn’t yet packed a nightdress. All the ones she possessed were on the
sofa waiting for her to make her choice. She looked at them in something approaching despair. None of them were spectacularly pretty. Her newest, made of serviceably warm winceyette, wasn’t
even remotely pretty.

Decisively she scooped them up in her arms and went back upstairs with them, pushing them away in one of her dressing-table drawers. She would buy herself a new nightdress in the morning, before
leaving for Hornchurch, and the nightdress she bought wouldn’t be sensible or made of winceyette. It would be the prettiest and the most frivolous that clothing coupons could buy.

Sitting in the train next day as it pulled out of Liverpool Street Station, two thoughts occurred to her almost simultaneously. The first, the fact that Toby’s RAF camp
would, in all likelihood, be a considerable distance from the centre of Hornchurch and that she might find difficulty in reaching it on public transport; the second, that she hadn’t seen
Carrie since she had made her momentous decision to spend Toby’s leave with him in Essex and that Carrie would have no idea where she was.

From the train window she looked out on to suburban gardens, all scarred by the tell-tale hump of half-buried, Anderson shelters. Finding Toby’s RAF camp would not be such a difficult task
and if Carrie knocked for her over the weekend she wouldn’t worry overmuch at receiving no reply. Knowing Carrie, she might even guess the reason for the house being empty.

Her excitement at the thought of her coming reunion with Toby intensified as the train chugged its way via Ilford towards Hornchurch. With the war news where Belgium, Holland and France were
concerned worsening every hour, it was a miracle he was being granted any leave at all and she was well aware that if France fell and Hitler turned his full might against Britain, it might be many
months before they would be able to share another such weekend leave.

The train was packed with young airmen returning to camp and she remembered Mr Giles’s remarks of the previous evening. The excitement she had been feeling spiralled into cold terror. It
was a terror all too familiar; a terror she always experienced whenever she thought of Toby, strapped into the cockpit of his Hurricane, engaging high above the clouds in personal and deadly battle
with a German fighter plane or launching an attack on an enemy bomber.

‘Hornchurch!’ a guard called out loudly. ‘Hornchurch!’

Picking up her overnight bag and wishing it didn’t look so obviously what it was, she squeezed her way with other alighting passengers onto the platform. A newspaper placard was displayed
prominently bearing the headlines
‘Paris raided!’ ‘Brussels bombed’ ‘Many killed in Lyon’.
As she made her way to the barrier she prayed that
Toby’s leave hadn’t been cancelled and that he wasn’t, right at that very moment, at the controls of his plane, searching out the enemy over France or the Low Countries.

‘Kate!
Kate!’

At the sound of his voice her relief was so great that she almost stumbled.

‘Kate!’
he shouted again, vaulting the ticket barrier to the disconcertion of the ticket collector and striding towards her, magnificent in his RAF uniform, his flight
lieutenant’s stripes prominently emblazoned on his jacket sleeves.

Seconds later she was safe within the circle of his arms, crushed against the comforting broadness of his chest and then, as she turned her radiant face up to his, he lowered his head to hers,
kissing her long and lingeringly, utterly uncaring of the crowd of arriving and departing passengers seething around them.

When at last he reluctantly lifted his mouth from hers she said breathlessly, ‘I’ve just seen the news headlines and I was terrified your leave would have been cancelled!’

He grinned down at her, his shock of fair hair bleached almost wheat-colour by the sun, ‘It very nearly was and I’m going to have to stay pretty close to camp.’ With his arm
firmly around her waist he began to walk with her towards the irate ticket-collector. ‘It isn’t going to spoil our time together though. My Group Captain rents a house a quarter of a
mile or so away from camp and as his wife has had to scoot up to Yorkshire to tend an ailing parent he’s living on base and the house is temporarily up for grabs.’ His grin widened.
‘We’re the lucky twosome who have temporarily grabbed it.’

With her arm hugging his, her head resting comfortably against his shoulder, they walked out of the station and into the street.

‘Have things been tough for you since your father was interned?’ he asked gently as he led the way towards his parked MG.

She thought of the hostile crowd that had gathered to see her father being led away and the ugly, verbally expressed desire of a member of that crowd and said, ‘Not in relation to what
thousands of other people are suffering, but it’s been disillusioning.’

‘Your neighbours?’

She nodded. ‘Not Miss Godfrey or Carrie, of course. And not Charlie. But people I never dreamed would ever turn against my father have done so. Leastways, they didn’t speak out in
his defence when they should have spoken out.’

‘War does strange things to people,’ he said wryly, able to imagine all too easily the kind of confrontation that had taken place when Carl Voigt had been removed from his home.
‘In Norway people are being divided into two camps, those prepared to kowtow to the invaders of their country and those determined to continue resisting. And those who opt for continued
resistance will have a harsh lesson finding out who they can trust.’

Kate remained silent, knowing only too well the truth of his words. If Britain was invaded, her neighbours in Magnolia Square would no doubt divide into two similar camps. And the unexpected
resistance heroes would be people like Miss Pierce and Miss Godfrey and Charlie Robson.

Sensing the darkness of her thoughts, his arm tightened around her waist. ‘I’ve told you the good news about the weekend,’ he said, his voice full of teasing amusement,
‘but not the bad.’

‘The bad?’ Apprehension seized her. ‘What’s the bad news? What . . .’

‘We won’t be alone together at the cottage,’ he said, keeping his face straight with difficulty. ‘We shall be sharing it with a friend of mine, Hector.’

Her eyes widened in dismayed disbelief. ‘But I’d thought . . . I’d hoped . . .’

‘He’s waiting for us in the car. I don’t think you’ll find his presence a problem this weekend. In fact, I think you’re going to rather like him.’

Her dismay deepened into embarrassed despair. The significance of her joining him at Hornchurch had been lost on him. He hadn’t understood.

‘Toby, I . . .’ she began awkwardly and then stopped. The MG was parked prominently in the High Street and sitting in it was an impatient-looking, very large, very black, dog.