When the Lights Go on Again (7 page)

‘Three hundred pounds?’ Vi gasped.

‘Yes. Luckily I’d got a bit put by. I’d been saving for after the war, thinking that me and Daphne would be wanting to buy our own home then.’

Vi’s emotions overwhelmed her. ‘Oh, my poor boy, I’ll do what I can to help you, but the most I can manage is a hundred.’

He’d done it. Charlie crowed inwardly in triumph.

‘I hate taking money from you, Ma, especially after what Dad’s done. I’ll pay you back, I promise. At least now all I’ve got to worry about is doing my bit for the country, and making sure we get this war won.’

‘It’s definite that you’re going into action, then?’ Bella asked.

‘Looks like it,’ Charlie confirmed. ‘All leave’s cancelled after this weekend, and we’ve been told we’ve already got orders to ship out. No one’s saying for definite, but it’s got to be Italy, with Sicily already invaded and won, and some of our men already with the American Fifth Army at Salerno.’

Bella nodded. What Charlie was saying confirmed what everyone seemed to be expecting. She had no idea what part her own Jan would be playing in any invasion of Italy. Jan’s fighter pilot squadron based in the South of England covered the South Coast and the Channel, and as far as Bella was aware, it was the heavy bombers, both American and British, that were being used to make raids on Germany’s defences in Italy and Germany itself.

If Italy could be captured then the way would be open for the Allies to really drive back the Germans.

Italy – that willing little bed partner Bella had made all the fuss about had had an Italian look about her, Charlie reflected, well pleased now with the result of his hard work, and typically and conveniently forgetting that it had been Bella who had saved the day for him.

Life just didn’t seem fair, Vi thought bitterly.

She had been so proud when Charlie had married ‘up’ to a girl with a double-barrelled surname, and so had Edwin. But then Edwin had been tempted away from her by that dreadful scheming creature who had worked for him and with whom he was now living openly in sin, despite the fact that, technically at least, he and Vi were still man and wife. And now here was Charlie, her son, saying that his wife wanted a divorce. How could life be so cruel and unfair, especially to her? She had always lived a blameless life, selflessly devoting herself to the good of others, looking around for the right kind of husband; marrying Edwin for practical, sensible reasons, unlike her twin, Jean, who had fallen in love with the first man who had asked her out, and then marrying him without even considering what his future prospects might be.

Then she’d taken in their younger sister’s illegitimate child, who had caused her nothing but trouble, only to have Fran carry on as though she and Edwin had been cruel to the boy instead of giving him the best of everything.

She’d even insisted that Edwin buy this house here in Wallasey, for Edwin and her children’s sake rather than her own, so that Bella and Charlie could mix with a better class of people. It was because of the sacrifices she had made that Edwin had done as well as he had, and the family had risen to the position where others looked up to them and envied them.

Then the country had gone to war and everything had changed, and Vi didn’t like those changes.

But it was poor Charlie she must think of, not herself. She must make sure too that people knew how badly Charlie had been treated, and how honourably he had behaved in return. Just mentally thinking the word ‘honourably’ made Vi feel better. No one could argue against or criticise a young man who behaved honourably.

‘Oh, you’re still awake.’

The tone of Sasha’s voice made it very clear to Lou that Sasha didn’t welcome the fact that Lou was sitting up in bed in their shared bedroom, instead of being asleep.

Lou had been giving a great deal of thought to Sasha over the course of the evening, her concern for her twin growing with everything that her mother had said about Sasha – and, more importantly, everything she had not said.

Lou had learned that ‘Sasha isn’t doing Bobby any favours by trying to force him to turn his back on his comrades in the bomb disposal service by asking for a transfer into other military duties’ – her father’s comment.

And, ‘I can understand that poor Sasha worries about Bobby doing such a dangerous job, but having a go at your dad because he won’t help her to persuade Bobby to ask for a transfer isn’t the right way to go about things. Your dad’s a man of principle and he respects Bobby for insisting that he intends to stick with his comrades’ – their
mother’s statement. And all the things in between that hadn’t been said but which Lou had been able to sense with the maturity that being in uniform and having to work as part of a team with others had brought her.

‘I could tell this afternoon that she wasn’t herself,’ Lou had admitted to her mother when they had been in the kitchen together after tea, washing up the tea things, a family ritual that Lou had once done everything she could to escape, but that today she had loved because of the opportunity it gave her to share a special closeness with her mother, as two adult women.

‘I thought that it must be because of me and because she thought I’d been talking about her behind her back.’

Jean had sighed and shaken her head. ‘There’s no reasoning with her these days. I wouldn’t mind so much if I thought that she was happy, but when I can see that she isn’t…’ She’d turned to Lou, her hands still in the washing-up water, red and slightly chapped from all the hard work they did. Looking at them, Lou had felt a surge of fierce love for her mother, and an equally intense wish that she could do something not just to put things right between her and Sasha, but to help her mother as well.

‘I’ll try and talk to her, if you like,’ she had offered. ‘I’d planned to tell her anyway how sorry I am that I was so mean to her when she and Bobby first started going out, because I didn’t want things to change and I just wanted it to be me and her, like it had always been.’

Lou had guessed that their mother had expected Sasha to return home early from her tea out with Bobby because Lou was home, and that she was upset because Sasha had not done so. Because of that Lou had set herself the task of showing her parents, and especially her mother, that she was not upset or offended and that she was happy in their company, telling them about her own life in ATA, or at least giving them a carefully edited version of it so as not to alarm her mother, listening to the news with them, laughing when her father reminded her of the racket she and Sasha used to make with their music and their dancing, and listening with genuine interest whilst Jean brought her up to date on things that were happening within the family.

But all the time Lou had been trying to think of the best way to break down the barriers between her and Sasha.

‘No,’ she answered her twin now with a warm smile, ‘I wanted to wait up for you so that we could have a proper chat. Do you remember how we used to talk so late into the night that Mum threatened to make us sleep in separate rooms?’

When Sasha didn’t respond but turned away from her instead, and started getting ready for bed, Lou tried again.

‘Mum and Dad were both saying how much they like Bobby.’

Sasha, who had put one foot on their shared bentwood chair whilst she removed her stockings, stiffened but didn’t say anything.

‘I’m really sorry that I was such an idiot and
behaved so badly when you and Bobby were first seeing one another, Sash,’ Lou apologised generously. ‘I was so immature and selfish, wanting to keep things between us the way they had always been.’

Sash had returned to removing her stockings. Her twin had lost weight, Lou recognised. Even the dim light of the bedside lamp couldn’t conceal how pinched her face looked. Lou looked towards the window with its heavy blackout covering. If only Sasha would just make some response, but her twin was behaving as though Lou simply wasn’t there.

Lou wasn’t going to give up, though. Not for one minute.

‘I was so jealous of Bobby,’ she continued, laughing at herself, ‘him being with bomb disposal and being a real hero. You must be so proud of him, Sasha.’

Now at last her twin reacted, turning to face Lou, her eyes blazing with emotion in her pale face.

‘Proud of him for risking getting himself killed when he knows what that would do to me? When he could ask for a transfer out?’

Sasha’s voice held so much anger and so much pain that Lou could feel that pain in her own heart.

‘I hate this war. I hate it and I just want it to be over, before it can take Bobby from me,’ Sasha burst out.

In a flash Lou was pushing back the bedclothes and getting out of bed, her one thought to comfort her twin, as she ran across the space that divided their single beds.

‘Oh, Sash, I’m so sorry.’ Lou reached out to put her arms around her twin.

‘No you’re not. You’re enjoying this war, like everyone else: Mum and Dad, and Grace and Seb, and…and everyone. Well, I’m not enjoying it. I hate it. I hate everything about it, everything.’

Sasha had torn herself free from Lou’s embrace before Lou could stop her, snatching up her toilet bag, obviously intending to go to the bathroom.

Lou watched her go, her heart aching for her twin, knowing instinctively, because they were twins, that what Sasha had really wanted to say was that she hated everyone involved in the war rather than merely everything.

Poor Sasha. Of course her twin must be worried about Bobby, especially with him having such a very dangerous job. Lou wasn’t in love herself so she felt that she couldn’t truly appreciate how it must feel to know that the person you loved and wanted to spend the rest of your life with might be taken from you. On the other hand, she did know girls who were engaged and married, and whilst they were naturally anxious for their loved ones their feelings about the war did not match Sasha’s. Feeling very troubled and concerned for her twin, Lou went back to bed.

Sasha was an awfully long time in the bathroom. Because she was upset or because she was hoping that Lou herself would be asleep by the time she returned, Lou wondered. If that was the case, perhaps right now the best thing she could do for her twin was grant her that privacy, Lou accepted tiredly as she stifled a yawn. It had been
a very long day and hopefully there would be time for them to talk properly to one another tomorrow, when Sasha was feeling calmer.

When she opened the bedroom door and saw that the room was in darkness, Sasha let out her pent-up breath in shaky relief. There was no point in her trying to explain to her twin how she felt. Lou simply wouldn’t understand.

Putting her wash bag on the dressing table, Sasha felt in the pocket of her dressing gown for the familiar reassuring security of her small torch. She had bought it and its batteries on the black market, and it and Bobby’s engagement ring were her most precious possessions. Both of them gave her comfort and helped her to feel safe.

Very carefully she put the torch under her pillow and then quickly removed her dressing gown. If she concentrated and didn’t think about the dark and the ice-cold shudders of fear it sent crawling down her spine, she could be in bed and reaching for her torch before it had the chance to take hold of her. What she must not do once she was in bed was think about how the weight of the bedclothes reminded her of being trapped in the bomb shaft, knowing that if Lou let go of her she would slip completely beneath it, swallowed up by the darkness, and the weight of the bomb and the earth around it pressing down on her smothering her.

She was in bed now but she was trembling so much she couldn’t get hold of the torch. A cold sweat was filming her forehead, panicky nausea gripping her stomach, her heart pounding and her
lungs refusing to expand to take in air. A horrible choking sensation tightened her chest, as the seconds ticked by, her panic only releasing her when she finally held the torch and switched it on. Light. It made her feel so much safer and calmer. With the little torch on she knew she wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night fearing that she was still trapped beneath the bomb and that she was going to die.

It had all been so different when she had first been rescued. She had been so happy then, so grateful to Lou for staying with her, and even more grateful to Bobby for taking her twin’s place and then her own so that she could be rescued. It had been only after Lou had joined the WAAF that she had started having these awful feelings of panic and fear, flashbacks to how it had felt to be trapped under the bomb. At first she had tried to ignore those feelings, hoping that if she did they would simply go away, but they hadn’t. Instead they’d grown worse, tormenting her at every turn, making her afraid to go to sleep in case she woke up in the darkness thinking she was still trapped. The torch protected her, keeping the darkness at bay, but nothing could protect her from her fears. Fears that were all the worse for her knowing that every day Bobby risked losing his own life because he worked in bomb disposal. The thought of him being trapped as she had been terrified her. She had forbidden him to talk to her about his work because she simply couldn’t bear hearing about the shafts they had to dig to get down to some of the bombs. She had nightmares about those shafts;
about being trapped in one of them with the earth burying her, slowly choking her to death.

There was no point in her trying to explain to anyone how she felt. Who would understand? Not Bobby, who laughed at her when she said that his work was too dangerous, not Lou, who loved nothing more than risking her own life flying in a plane, not the girls she worked with at the telephone exchange, who all had boyfriends or husbands, doing their bit for the country, not her elder sister, Grace, either, who talked about the bravery of the wounded soldiers she nursed, and certainly not her parents, who were so proud of Luke. They would all think she was a coward and be ashamed of her. She felt ashamed of herself. Ashamed and afraid and so very alone.

Tears trickled down Sasha’s face, her hold on the little torch tightening, her last thought before she fell asleep that she must wake up before Lou so that she could switch off the torch so Lou wouldn’t know about it.