When the Lights Go on Again (12 page)

She was free now, Katie recognised, free to be herself without worrying that others would misjudge her as Luke had; free to make her own judgements about what felt right for her and what didn’t.

Once Lou had let the other occupants of the WAAF hut, to which she had been assigned a bed for the night, know that she had been in the WAAF herself, their slight wariness of her immediately melted, and before too long the whole hut, apart from its corporal, who had tactfully disappeared, were clustered together on the two beds in the middle of the hut closest to the stove, sipping cocoa generously laced with Forces-issue whisky (as one Waaf explained to Lou, her army boyfriend had told her that it was possible to swap his permitted purchase of a bottle of gin for two bottles of whisky, such was the demand for the former, so he had passed one bottle of whisky on to her).

Things had certainly changed since she had been a Waaf, Lou reflected, feeling very much like an old hand.

‘There’s a run on tonight,’ one of the girls told Lou. ‘The planes will be taking off soon, heading for Germany.’

There was a small silence whilst Lou suspected they all dwelled on the pounding Bomber Command was giving Germany’s cities – and its people – destruction of property and life being a necessary
evil of war. But Lou, who had lived through the Liverpool blitz, couldn’t help shivering and feeling sorry for the innocents whose homes and lives would be destroyed.

Within minutes of their conversation the hut was filled with the sound of plane engines starting up. Lou could well imagine the sight of the heavy bombers queuing to take off one by one, following the lead aircraft as they headed for the South Coast and the ever-present dangers of their mission.

Automatically, without having to think about it, Lou counted the planes taking off.

‘Fifteen,’ the girl who had produced the whisky announced, as the sound of the last one started to fade. ‘We always count them out,’ she informed Lou.

‘We’ve lost six planes and their crews already this month,’ one of the other girls added quietly. ‘The Luftwaffe lie in wait for them coming across the Channel if the Spits based on the South Coast aren’t quick enough to force them back.’

When she was offered another splash of whisky to go in what was left of her now almost cold cocoa, Lou didn’t refuse it. Now that she had flown herself, she could well imagine the vulnerability of the bomber crews in their heavily laden planes.

‘Cath, didn’t you say that Kieran Mallory is having to pilot Joe Stringer’s plane tonight when he was supposed to be off duty?’

‘Yes, poor devil. The word is that since Joe was taken off flying duties, after they were shot up so badly last week that they almost didn’t make it back, his whole crew has got the jitters, and you
know what they say about flying with anyone like that. Some of the pilots claim that they can tell when a member of their crew can’t handle it any more. They say it’s like flying with someone with a death wish and that it affects the whole crew. And tonight Kieran Mallory’s got a whole crew like that.’

‘Well, if anyone can pull them round it’s him. He’s one of the best.’

‘And one of the best-looking as well,’ another girl chipped in, raising a laugh from everyone else.

Kieran Mallory had obviously changed a great deal since he had left Liverpool, Lou decided, listening with some surprise to the other girls’ praise of him. And concern? Certainly not. There was no need for her to feel concern on his behalf. Not when there was a hut full of girls here more than ready to do that.

The dance at the Grafton was in full swing, the dance floor packed with couples. Sasha loved dancing. It was the one thing that lifted from her shoulders the fear and misery that weighed her down. When she was dancing she got forget those fears and that misery. She’d be here at the Grafton every night if she could, and Bobby, bless him, was good-natured enough to say that whatever Sasha wanted, he wanted too, except of course when it came to her wanting him to leave the Bomb Disposal unit. But she wasn’t going to think about that right now, Sasha decided, not with the band in full swing. The young American GIs from Burtonwood base near Warrington were showing
off their dance moves, their presence and their expertise adding excitement and energy to the evening. A lot of girls were now saying openly that they preferred to ‘date’ the handsome young Americans in their smart uniforms than their much less well-paid and turned-out British counterparts, but whilst she admired the GIs’ dancing, Sasha had no desire to swap her Bobby for one of them.

Smiling up at him, Sasha snuggled up in his arms when the lights dimmed and the tempo of the music slowed to a smoochier number. In fact, tonight she felt happier than she had done in ages.

The dance came to an end, the lights were turned up again, and Sasha and Bobby made their way back to the table, Bobby telling her to go on ahead without him whilst he went to the bar to get them each a drink.

‘I’ll just nip to the ladies then. Meet you back at the table,’ Sasha said, giving him a quick kiss.

The ladies was for once empty. Going into one of the cubicles, Sasha locked the door and hung her handbag on the peg.

Two minutes later, though, when she tried to unlock the door she discovered that for some reason it had jammed and she was trapped in the lavatory. Trying not to panic she called out, hoping that someone would hear her, but then abruptly all the lights went out, leaving her completely in the dark.

Now Sasha couldn’t face down her panic. It seized her and gripped her, cramping her tummy and bringing her out in a cold sweat whilst her heart thumped and she struggled to breathe.

Reality slipped away from her, eclipsed by the past. Inside her head Sasha wasn’t trapped in the ladies’ lavatory but beneath an unexploded bomb, and she was trapped there alone, abandoned by her twin and left to die. And she would die if she so much as breathed too heavily, never mind moved.

She mustn’t move, she mustn’t do anything that would cause the full weight of the bomb to come down on her, crushing her into darkness and death, but despite knowing that, a small whimper bubbled in her locked throat.

The lights had come back up but Sasha was barely aware of that fact. Mentally she had slipped into a place that held her trapped by her own memories.

The door to the cloakroom opened and three girls hurried in, giggling.

‘Did you hear what that Yank said to me? Called me a baby Betty Grable,’ one of them told the others.

‘That’s ‘cos he wanted to find out how old you are. The one I was dancing with promised me some proper nylons if I agreed to go out with him again. Here,’ the speaker broke off, gesturing down to the floor, ‘what’s that?’

All three girls looked downwards.

‘It looks like a shoe to me,’ the third member of the trio answered, having looked round from the mirror to glance at Sasha’s shoe, which was protruding from beneath the lavatory door.

‘Is there anyone in there?’ the girl who had first seen Sasha’s shoe demanded, banging on the door
and then turning the handle, telling the other two unnecessarily, ‘It’s locked. Here, Jenny, you’re the smallest, you get down on the floor and see if there’s anyone in there.’

‘What? No fear. I’m not getting down there and dirtying me frock. Besides, you don’t know what might be in there. In this book I read, there was a girl that was murdered in a lavvie and her body—’

‘Don’t be daft. Get down and have a look.’

The sound of the girls’ voices brought Sasha out of the place she had slipped into inside her own head. She felt sick and dizzy, her heart thudding far too fast. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t do anything other than sit curled up with her arms locked round her knees, still gripped by her own fear.

Beneath the door she could see blonde hair and a girl’s face, which suddenly disappeared when Jenny scrambled to her feet and told her friends breathlessly, ‘There’s a girl in there, sat right by the door and not saying anything.’

Pam, the eldest of the three, took charge.

Banging on the door, she asked, ‘You in there, are you all right?’

Sasha blinked and shivered, the images that had been tormenting her receding and her awareness of where she was returning.

‘Yes,’ she called back, ‘but the lock on the door’s jammed.’

‘Jenny, go and fetch someone and be quick about it,’ Pam ordered her friend. ‘Tell them that there’s someone stuck in one of the lavvies.’

‘What do you mean, fetch someone – who?’

‘The manager, of course, you daft head,’ Pam instructed her. Then, leaning towards the door she called out to Sasha, ‘Don’t worry, love, we’ll have you out of there soon. Trapped in there when the lights went off, was you? Give us all a real shock, that did.’

‘You didn’t look to me like you was all that shocked when they came back on again and you was still letting that Yank kiss you,’ Jenny objected, wincing when Pam pulled open the door to the ladies and pushed her through it.

‘Won’t be long before you’re out of there,’ Pam called to Sasha, only to break off when the outer door opened to readmit Jenny.

‘There’s a lad out there says he’s looking for his fiancée.’

Pam pulled open the door and assessed Bobby. Having decided that he looked a decent sort, and safe, she told him, ‘You’d better come in. There’s a girl trapped in one of the lavvies. I don’t know if it’s your fiancée but—’

Moving past her, Bobby knocked on the locked door and called out, ‘Sasha, is that you in there? It’s me – Bobby.’

Relief swelled through Sasha. Once again Bobby was here to save her.

Suddenly she was sobbing and saying his name, and Bobby was telling her not to worry and that she would be free soon, before he left to go and find the manager.

‘What are you crying for?’ Pam demanded as Jenny burst into noisy sobs.

‘I can’t help it,’ Jenny protested. ‘It’s just so romantic, that’s all, like sommat out of a film.’

‘Romantic? Being trapped in a lavvie? Don’t be daft,’ Pam told Jenny scornfully whilst Eliza, the third member of the trio, announced, ‘Right scared, I’d be if it was me. Imagine if we hadn’t come in and found her? She could have ended up locked in there all night.’

Listening to them from inside her prison, Sasha shuddered. She was so lucky to have Bobby to protect her and love her. Without him…A fresh fear gripped her as she contemplated how unbearable her life would be if she were ever to be left alone with her fear without Bobby to protect her from it. She wouldn’t be able to live without him, she just wouldn’t.

A few minutes later, freed from her prison and in Bobby’s arms, Sasha thanked her rescuers between her tears before Bobby guided her tenderly towards the dance hall exit.

‘I’m so glad you came and found me, Bobby,’ Sasha told him.

‘I’d have been there sooner,’ he responded, ‘but I thought you must have bumped into someone you knew and that you were having a bit of a chinwag. It was only when you’d been gone ages that I started getting worried.’

‘When the lights went out it made me feel just like I did when I was trapped under that bomb,’ Sasha told him emotionally.

‘What? Don’t be daft,’ Bobby responded affectionately, adding, ‘Come on, I’d better get you home.’

Once they were outside on the pavement Sasha
clung tightly to Bobby’s arm. The closer they got to her home, the tighter she clung to him, and when finally they turned into her road Sasha stopped walking and told him, ‘Bobby, I don’t want to go home. I want to stay with you.’

‘Sash, we can’t do that. For one thing, my landlady wouldn’t let us, and for another your dad would have my guts for garters if I were to…well, you know what I mean.’

Bobby was a decent young man who, much as he loved Sasha, would never dream of suggesting that they anticipate their marriage vows. Sasha’s words had caught him off guard and, if he were honest, they had shocked him as well. It was so unlike her. Both of them had agreed that there would be ‘no funny business’ between them until after they were married. A little heavy petting on a handful of occasions was as far as they had gone, and as far as Bobby really wanted to go until Sasha was wearing his wedding ring – and not just because he knew he wouldn’t be able to face either of her parents but especially her father, whom Bobby admired a great deal, if he had taken advantage of Sasha, and their engagement.

‘Bobby, I want to be with you. I want you to hold me tight and keep me safe.’ Sasha’s voice and body both trembled, the intensity of her emotion making Bobby feel helpless. He didn’t understand her in this unfamiliar mood. It just wasn’t like her.

‘We can’t do that until we’re married, Sash. You know that.’

‘Then let’s get married,’ Sasha told him wildly. ‘Let’s get married now, Bobby, as soon as we can.’

‘You know your dad won’t let us.’

Sasha did know that. Her parents, and especially her father, had made it clear to her that he would not give his consent to their marriage until the war was over or she was twenty-one, whichever happened first.

Tears streamed down Sasha’s face. Bobby just didn’t know what to do. He knew that there must be some connection between her present mood and the fact that she had been trapped in the lavatory, but for the life of him he couldn’t imagine what it might be. Bobby was a pragmatic young man, not given to dwelling on things or being troubled by his imagination. The fact that Sasha had told him that being stuck in the lavatory had reminded her of being trapped under the bomb was something he had dismissed as a female reaction that he was not equipped to understand.

‘Come on,’ he told Sasha, urging her forward, ‘if we don’t get back soon your mum will be worrying.’

Sasha didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. She was too gripped by fear and helplessness. She needed Bobby to be with her. Only he could make her feel safe. Once they were married and Bobby had left the Bomb Disposal squad then she would stop feeling like this, and everything would be all right. Why couldn’t her parents and Bobby realise that? Why couldn’t they understand? Once she wouldn’t have needed to explain to anyone how she felt because Lou would have been there and Lou would have known. But Lou had changed, become different, forcing Sasha to be protective of
her love for Bobby, and the closeness they had shared had gone. Now there was no one to understand the fear and pain locked inside her. Sometimes she didn’t even understand it herself, Sasha admitted