Mrs Bridges began to back down so fast, Kathy thought, that her heels must have smoked. ‘I’m that sorry, Miss Kelling,’ she gabbled, ‘but you don’t know what it’s like, trying to run a respectable house in wartime. Once I get a name for laxness, then the real bad types will be the only ones who’ll come here. I hopes I’m not a killjoy but there’s right and wrong and I won’t have goings-on under my roof.’
Kathy knew a wild desire to say
or on your roof, apparently
, but bit the words back. Instead, she accepted Mrs Bridges’s apology gracefully and ushered the older woman out of the room, saying: ‘I must admit, I thought I heard something myself, but thought it was a cat. I was looking out of the window when you burst in, but I didn’t see anything. Probably the noise you made – and the light streaming out – scared it off. Is there a key to my room, Mrs Bridges, because I hope you won’t be offended, but I’ve no desire to be shocked out of my sleep by another surprise visit.’
Kathy saw Mrs Bridges begin to bridle and then change it into an understanding nod. ‘Aye, I know what you mean, but I honestly thought . . . still, enough of that. There ain’t a key, miss, but there’s a bolt about halfway down. And now I’ll bid you goodnight.’
She went out, shutting the door firmly behind her. Kathy immediately shot the bolt across, then turned to Alec. She had wondered whether he had taken the opportunity of escaping from the house whilst Mrs Bridges was searching the room in the half dark, but he was still there, grinning ruefully at her.
‘Are you OK?’ Kathy whispered.
Alec took her in his arms, then kissed her gently on the mouth. ‘When she threw that bloody door open, she nearly broke my nose,’ he whispered. ‘I’m sure it’s twice the size it was when I came through the window. God, what a harridan! But you were marvellous, Kathy. I’m sure most girls would have broken down in tears and admitted everything, but not you! I nearly died laughing when you picked the chair up and hurled it against the door, although it didn’t do much to improve my nose, I can tell you.’
Kathy sniggered, but quietly. ‘I’m just so thankful we got away with it. But Alec darling, what’ll happen in the morning? I guess she probably gets up as soon as it’s light, and even if she doesn’t hear anything I reckon she’ll nip out and take a look at the tiles, just to see if there are any signs.’
‘I’ll leave before she’s even thinking of getting up,’ Alec promised. ‘I’ll go as far as Frank’s Cabin and get myself some breakfast there. It’s a sort of workman’s caff, but he does a goodish spread, for wartime that is. It’s on Rosemary Lane, so I suggest you come and pick me up there at nine o’clock. We’ll go along to the railway station and dump your kit bag in the Left Luggage and then we’ll have a lovely day, OK?’
‘That sounds wonderful,’ Kathy said. She climbed into her bed and held the covers up so that Alec could squiggle in beside her. ‘I say, it’s a narrow bed, isn’t it? Don’t go falling out or the old horror will be along here before you can say knife.’
‘The door’s locked, and anyway I think you’ve spiked her guns. She won’t dare to interfere again,’ Alec said drowsily. He put both his arms round her and kissed the back of her neck. ‘Oh, Kathy, it’s grand to be with you.’
His hands, which had rested lightly round her waist, suddenly began to do a bit of exploring and Kathy pinched him as hard as she could. ‘Stop that!’ she hissed. ‘You know what we said; just you stick to it, Alec Hewitt, or you’ll find yourself sailing through that window a lot quicker than you came in.’
Alec’s hands returned meekly to her waist and Kathy, not sure whether to be pleased or sorry, patted him approvingly. ‘Thanks, Alec,’ she murmured. ‘And now let’s see if we can both get a good night’s sleep.’
‘Good God, Al, what the devil’s happened to your nose? I’d never have thought you were the fightin’ kind but I see I were wrong. And is that the beginnin’ of a black eye? But I suppose you’ll say that the other feller’s still in hospital!’
Two days had passed since Alec had said goodbye to Kathy on the platform of Lincoln station, but this was the first time he had seen Jimmy since Bare Nell had gone in for repairs. Now Alec turned and grinned, a trifle lopsidedly, at his friend. He had not been kidding when he told Kathy that he feared his nose was broken, and now, standing in the ablutions hut with his towel slung round his neck, clad only in his underpants, he looked curiously at his reflection in the small, tin mirror which was all the RAF considered it necessary to provide. Jimmy was right; his nose was swollen and a fiery red and his left eye had a purple bruise across the cheekbone. But it had been worth it, he thought contentedly now. He had had the best night’s sleep for many months and though Kathy had woken him while the stars still pricked the dark sky, he had understood her anxiety and had dressed and slid quietly down to ground level without making a sound.
They had met, as arranged, in Frank’s Cabin where Alec had been finishing off an unlikely breakfast of sausage, chips and baked beans, accompanied by great doorsteps of bread and marge. Kathy had sat down beside him, accepting a large tin mug of strong tea and giving him a sweet, conspiratorial smile. In response to his hand squeeze and raised eyebrows, she had said softly: ‘Everything was fine, honest it was. Mrs B was friendly as anything, kept saying what a nice sort of girl I was and how she hoped I’d stay with her again next time I was in Lincoln. She never alluded to what happened last night and I was glad of it because I still feel a bit guilty.’
‘Well, you weren’t guilty; you’re as pure as the driven snow,’ Alec said, somewhat gloomily. ‘I did hope you might fall asleep and go all lovin’ and cuddly on me, or perhaps have a nightmare so I had to comfort you. But all you did was snore like a motor bike all night.’
‘I never did!’ Kathy had squeaked indignantly. ‘I
never
snore! If I did, I’d know all about it because there’s twenty-eight of us in our hut who’d be only too happy to chuck things at me or moan that I lost them sleep if I did snore. Mind you, O’Haggerty snores,’ she added reflectively. ‘We’ve told her over and over and the girl next to her gives her a shove whenever she’s lying on her back, but O’Haggerty still maintains it’s just heavy breathing.’
Alec had laughed and kissed her again, then picked up a sausage from his plate and offered it to her. ‘I was having you on, seeing if I could get a rise out of you,’ he admitted. ‘Here, have my last sausage to show there’s no ill feeling; though it is only “breadcrumbs in battledress” and not a real, meaty sausage.’
Kathy had giggled but refused his kind offer. ‘Mrs B gave me a good breakfast: a sausage which was almost real, a great pile of dried egg – yuck – and some delicious bottled tomatoes,’ she said. ‘And lots of toast – she makes her own bread – as well as plum jam or marmalade, which she also makes herself.’ She had smiled up at him, an expression of great sweetness on her small face, and Alec thought that there was an austere beauty in Kathy now which transcended Jane’s more obvious prettiness. ‘Well, we couldn’t have a lovelier day, Alec, so what have you planned for us?’ She had glanced up at the skylight above her head, blue and gold with sunshine.
Alec had told her that even now Frank was putting them up a packed lunch, so it seemed sensible to go straight to the Brayford Pool, where they could hire a boat. Kathy had agreed enthusiastically and presently the two of them had set off into the sunny morning, gleefully aware that they had the whole day before them.
‘Hey, Hewitt! I axed you a question, so don’t you go off into a dream afore you’ve answered. Who biffed you on the nose . . . and come to that, where the devil have you been these past two days? I know the Wingco said that we could make ourselves scarce for the next four or five days, but I didn’t know you meant to light out for Norfolk!’
‘I didn’t,’ Alec said briefly. ‘I fancied a bit of time to myself, you know how it is, and the weather was bootiful, so I just made myself scarce. Come to that, where have
you
been? I was back on the station a couple of days ago but I saw no hide nor hair of you.’
‘
I
went home to me folks,’ Jimmy said righteously. ‘And of course, I went and saw Jane ’cos her site’s so handy. The first thing she said – after she’d kissed me till I nearly fainted, of course – was, “Where’s Alec?” I might have took offence but I decided to forgive her because I were wonderin’ where you were an’ all. I went into the mess to suggest you might come home with me, but someone said you’d had a phone call and caught the next gharry into town. I waited till after five,’ he continued aggrievedly, ‘but there were no sign of you so I went off meself, gorra train in Lincoln headin’ for home and rang the mess from there. Twice I rang,’ he went on, ‘but all they could tell me was that you hadn’t come back, so of course I guessed you’d gone back to Norfolk.’
‘Well, I didn’t’ Alec said again. He was tempted to tell Jimmy that he had spent the two days with Kathy, and was not quite sure why he did not do so. They had had such a wonderful time, had shared so many laughs, that it seemed ridiculous not to tell his best friend that he had a girlfriend at last, and one who meant a great deal to him.
The truth was, he did not want the fact that he had spent two days with Kathy to get back to Jane. The first time he and Jane had agreed to rendezvous at a town roughly midway between Lincoln and Liverpool, they had booked in as Flight Lieutenant and Mrs Hewitt. Jane had done the booking since she had arrived at the King’s Head first but, Alec reminded himself grimly, you went along with it. Jane had been both willing and eager and, when he had proved uneasy, had assured him that he was by no means the first. ‘Jimmy and me has shared a bed whenever we got the chance since he joined the air force,’ she had told him. ‘I takes precautions, of course, because I don’t want no baby messin’ my life up – I seen what it done to my mum – but honest to God, Alec, what’s so perishin’ special about it? Kissin’ and cuddlin’s grand fun and it leads on to the other. So what? If you make sure there won’t be babies, then it’s only a tiny little step further than kissin’, wouldn’t you say?’
Alec had understood what she meant, though he found he did not agree with her; going to bed with a girl was a great deal more intimate than just kissing her. But though he told himself he did not approve of Jane’s moral stance, he had made love to her because she expected it (he also told himself) and he had thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Yet now, comparing the nights he had spent with Jane to the time with Kathy, he knew, to his own secret astonishment, which one he would rather repeat. He had revelled in Kathy’s innocent acceptance of his promise not to do anything further, and had enjoyed the soft yet subtle feel of her in his arms even more than he had enjoyed Jane’s uninhibited gymnastics. He was pretty sure that if Jane wanted to get in bed with him again, he would repulse her. Well, fairly sure.
On the other hand, he hoped very much that the next time he and Kathy got together, she would be less shy, more willing. He saw himself asking her to marry him, giving her an engagement ring, because he was already fairly sure that he liked her better than any other girl he had ever dated. But was this love? He honestly could not say. He just knew that when he put his arms round Kathy, something moved in his heart and an enormous tenderness took possession of him. He was certain that if they eventually married, he would be gloriously happy and fulfilled in a way he had never been before.
Still, one did not ask a girl to marry in wartime. A bride one day, a widow the next, he thought ruefully. No, it was better for both of them not to get entangled. He knew that everybody in his squadron thought that the war had a long way to go yet, and he agreed with them. Only – only it would be awful to die without ever having made love to Kathy. She was sweet as honey and sharp as a lemon, bright as sunshine yet deep, deep as the ocean. Beside her, Jane was shallow as a mountain stream, and the fact that she could sleep with him and with his best friend – and possibly with several others – simply went to prove his point. Kathy was worth wooing and winning, and he should not hesitate but should make up his mind not to see Jane again, and tell Jimmy at once how he felt about Kathy and where he had spent the first two days of his leave.
He and Jimmy strolled back to their beds, Jimmy chattering inconsequentially as they went. Alec found himself wishing that he could be absolutely frank, could tell Jimmy all about Kathy and what had happened at Mrs Bridges’s, but he told himself that if he did so, Jimmy would either disbelieve him, in which case he would think Kathy no better than she should be, or assume that Alec had gone off his rocker to let such an opportunity pass him by. As for Jane, what did she really matter? He truly believed she was a nice girl who had let the excitement of war go to her head. In normal circumstances, she would have flirted with him a little – and probably with other fellows too – and would then have returned to her beloved Jimmy without a stain on her character. They would have married and had a family and lived happily ever after. It was all the fault of this terrible, bloody war which taught girls – and young men – that if they did not act today, it might be too late tomorrow.
‘Well, if you won’t tell me what you done to get that swollen nose, then I’m bound to think the worst,’ Jimmy grumbled, as the two of them set off for the cookhouse. He grabbed Alec’s arm, bringing his friend to an abrupt halt. ‘I say, I s’pose it weren’t a judy, were it? Don’t tell me my solemn, self-righteous, priggish pal has gone and got fresh with one of the WAAF Wing Officers!’
For a moment, Alec was honestly tempted to say something outrageous. Something like,
No, not a Wing Officer. It were your girlfriend, Jane. Her foot caught me in the nose at an intimate moment;
that would teach Jimmy not to call him a self-righteous prig. Fortunately, common sense came to his aid. It would not do even to tell Jimmy the truth: that his wound had been inflicted by an irate landlady. He would simply have to grin and act mysterious. ‘Never you mind,’ he said airily, therefore. ‘But it were worth it, I’m telling you.’