Kitty laughed. ‘There’s no need for him to propose. We just take it for granted we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together.’
Dale had permanently reserved the hotel room with the black wallpaper. One weekend, when he had an extended pass, they’d actually lived there, as if the little dark room on the fourth floor was their home. They made love, wandered out for a meal or to the pictures, then returned to make love again. In spirit, Kitty was rarely away from the place where she and Dale reached such heights of pleasure and delight. But it wasn’t just going to bed, it was merely being with the person you loved, who loved you, whose very presence could set your head spinning with a smile, a gesture of his hand, a turn of his head.
A few times, when she was on afternoons and Dale was unable to leave the base, Kitty had actually gone alone to the hotel, where she lay on the bed and thought how lucky she was that, out of all the millions and
millions
of men in the world, she had managed to find Dale. With her eyes closed, she visualised his face above hers, imagined his fingers roaming her body, creeping into the most secret of places. Within her mind, her hands caressed his hard, firm body. He entered her. It no longer hurt, the final act of love, but had become an exquisite, almost agonising joy, a tumultuous climax that left her panting and breathless.
‘Dale, I love you,’ she whispered, and wondered how on earth she could possibly last until the hour came when they would see each other again.
It was Kitty who heard the banging first, a frantic rat-a-tat-tat with the knocker on the front door. She glanced at the alarm clock. It was twenty past two. Groaning, because she had to be up at half past five for work, she staggered out of bed and went downstairs.
Because the light on the landing was left permanently on, she opened the door the merest crack. It was too dark to make out the identity of the person who had knocked. ‘Hallo,’ she called when nobody spoke. ‘Who’s there?’
‘Who is it, Kitty?’ Jessica was peering down from the top of the stairs.
‘I don’t know. They won’t answer. Who’s there?’ Kitty called again. She listened hard and thought she could hear a sound. ‘I’m sure someone’s crying.’
‘Is that you, Jess?’ a voice quavered.
‘Rita!’ cried Jessica, astonished. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
A small figure fell against the door, pushing it open, onto the hallway floor. ‘Can I come in, Jess? I’ve nowhere else to go.’
Kitty was shocked to the core when she saw the state of the woman once she’d been helped inside. ‘Oh, my
God!
’ she gasped. Rita’s face was covered in bruises and her eyes were so swollen she could scarcely see. Her lip was split, she’d lost several teeth and there were bloody gaps on her scalp where her hair had been pulled out in tufts.
Jessica was almost in tears. ‘Oh, Rita, love, what happened?’
‘Den arrived home in the middle of a party.’ Rita’s voice came out in a hiss and was scarcely audible. ‘We were having ever such a good time. He told us he’d been in the fighting in Burma, but escaped across the border into India. He was in a terrible state, all gaunt and thin, and he could scarcely walk because his feet are still covered with sores. He lost his boots in Burma, you see. Poor Den!’ Rita’s bruised lips quivered and tears streamed down her swollen cheeks. ‘The army sent him back on a month’s leave to recuperate. He didn’t let me know, because he wanted to surprise me. When he first came in, he just sat there, ever so polite, telling us all about it in this funny flat voice. Me friends were dead embarrassed. They listened and didn’t say a word. Then, after a while, Den said, “Would you mind leaving? I’d like to have a word with me wife.” As soon as they’d gone, he really laid into me. I thought I was a goner, Jess, I really did.’
Whilst Rita was speaking, Kitty was gently bathing her injuries with warm water and cotton wool, though she did it out of a sense of duty, not because she felt all that sorry for the woman. She’d never met Rita before, but from the odd things Jess had said, was aware of what went on in the flat over the garage. ‘Are you sure there are no bones broken?’ she asked in her best nurse’s voice. ‘You really should go to the hospital for a check up.’
But Rita insisted she was all right. ‘I probably look worse than I feel.’
‘Where’s Den now?’ demanded a distraught Jessica. ‘How did you manage to get away?’
‘Oh, Jess, you’ve no idea how mad he was! He said he was going to kill us both and he set fire to the garage. I got away when the fire engine arrived, and as I was running down the road, the petrol exploded. God! I hope poor Den’s not dead.’
A few passers-by had stopped to stare at the still-smouldering wreckage of the building. Amidst the debris, Jessica could see the black twisted frames of her last remaining bikes. A shred of charred purple net fluttered from the telephone lines above.
‘Oh, well,’ she sighed. ‘At least the problem of the garage is sorted out. I don’t have to think about it any more.’
Rita had left very early that morning, having revealed she had a sister in Peterborough and would stay with her for the time being. ‘We don’t get on, but she won’t mind putting me up for a while.’
Jessica had tried to persuade her to stay, at least for a few days, ‘Until your face goes down a bit,’ but Rita was adamant she didn’t want Penny to see her the way she was. ‘It’d only frighten her. I’d like Penny to think of her Auntie Rita as having always been pretty and glamorous, and please Jess, don’t let her see the garage, either. Me and Penny used to have such good times there.’
So, wearing the black veiled hat which Jessica had reserved for funerals, Rita departed to catch the first train to Lime Street. She left her sister’s address and asked Jessica to do her one final favour. ‘Find out what happened to Den and let me know. I’d like to write to him if he’s okay and tell him I deserved all I got.’ Jessica promised she’d find out that very day.
With a final glance at the remains of the garage, Jessica made her way round to the police station to see if they knew what had gone on the night before. After convincing a haughty sergeant she was not just being
nosy
and it was very much her concern because she’d run a business on the premises until the day before, the man informed her that Dennis Mott had been found running amok down the road in search of his wife when the police arrived at the scene. ‘We called in the military and they took him away. To be perfectly frank, madam, although I’m sorry about your business, I don’t regret seeing the back of that place. It’s not the first time we’ve been called to a rumpus there.’
He wanted to know if she knew the whereabouts of the missing wife. ‘We’d like a few words with her,’ he said in a threatening voice.
Jessica professed total ignorance of where Rita Mott might be. ‘Yet I used to be so law-abiding!’ she thought on the way home.
A jeep without a driver was parked outside the King’s Arms when she turned into Pearl Street, and she hadn’t been in the house more than a few minutes when there was a knock on the door. She opened it to find Major Henningsen outside. There was an odd look on his stern face that she couldn’t quite define.
‘I called you this morning,’ he said in his usual curt tones, ‘but the operator said the line was down. I wanted to make final arrangements for the concert on Saturday.’
‘Come in,’ Jessica said politely. She realised with amazement that he’d actually been worried she’d come to some harm – or, more likely, he was worried about his concert.
‘Thanks.’
‘I’m afraid there was an accident last night at the garage,’ she said when he was sitting down. He looked entirely out of place in the little old-fashioned room.
‘I know, I’ve been there. I was slightly concerned you’d been hurt, which is why I came round. I knew the street, but not your number, so I asked at the bar on the corner.’ His eyes crinkled into a reluctant smile. ‘I must say they’re a friendly crowd of guys in there.’
He asked Jessica what had happened the night before, and after she’d told him, he said scathingly, ‘It sounds as if the woman only got what she deserved.’
Jessica made a face. ‘Strangely enough, that’s what Rita said herself.’
He glared at her. ‘You sound as if you don’t agree.’
‘I don’t agree with violence, particularly when it’s the strong against the weak. As to Rita getting what she deserved, I’m not sure. She merely took advantage of the situation she was put in. In a way, I always regarded Rita as an exaggerated version of myself. We even had the same red hair – though hers was dyed,’ she added quickly. ‘Not like mine.’
Major Henningsen regarded her curiously. ‘And would you take advantage of a situation like she did?’
‘I did once,’ said Jessica calmly, ‘and it completely altered my life.’ It was very odd, perhaps it was because she disliked him so intensely and didn’t give a damn what he thought, but she could say things to him that ordinarily she wouldn’t have said to another soul, particularly a man. ‘Have you ever done something, not that you’re later ashamed of, but you would never dream of doing if the circumstances hadn’t arisen?’
She got up and went into the back kitchen to fill the kettle with water. When she returned, he was slowly shaking his head. ‘I don’t think I have, no.’ He smiled, a genuine smile this time, and she felt taken aback when his grim face was completely transformed. He actually looked rather boyish. ‘Is that a good or a bad thing?’
‘I suppose it depends on the circumstances,’ Jessica shrugged. ‘In my case, it couldn’t have turned out better.’
‘You mean you had Penny?’
She felt her face turn scarlet and the kettle nearly dropped from her hand. ‘How did you … I mean, what made you say that?’ she stammered.
It was his turn to shrug. ‘You told me it was fate who decided you should have Penny. I put two and two together …’
Jessica put the kettle on the hob and turned it over the fire. ‘Are you shocked?’
‘Surprisingly, no.’
Before the conversation could go any further, the back door opened and Sheila Reilly came in with Penny in her arms. Her eyes glanced mischievously from Jessica to the visitor. ‘I would have kept Penny longer if I’d known you had company, Jess, but she’s longing for a nap and it’s like bedlam in our house.’
Jessica introduced her to Major Henningsen.
‘Call me Gus,’ he said amiably, shaking hands.
Sheila promptly invited him to Melling on Saturday afternoon. ‘Our Eileen, that’s me sister, is having a party in the garden to raise funds for Russia.’
To Jessica’s surprise, he graciously accepted, and even offered them a lift in his jeep. ‘Ta, but I’ve got six kids and they’ll never fit in,’ Sheila said regretfully. ‘Take Jess and Penny, though. A few people from the street are going, so I won’t be short of company on the bus.’
After reminding Jessica they would have to leave the garden party no later than four o’clock in order to be on time for the concert that evening, he chucked Penny underneath the chin and left.
‘He’s a striking looking man, Jess,’ remarked Sheila when Jessica returned to the living room after showing the major out.
‘He reminds me of Mussolini,’ Jessica said dismissively. ‘How are you feeling today? You shouldn’t be carrying Penny in your condition. She’s a ton weight.’
As a result of Cal’s short visit at Easter, Sheila had been delighted to find herself pregnant. ‘I feel on top of the world,’ she crowed. ‘Not like last time when I had a miscarriage. Having babies must be catching, mustn’t it? First Alice, then Theresa Quigley, now me! Oh, well,
I’d
best get home and make the tea. My lot are dying of starvation, as usual.’
Penny decided she was no longer tired and insisted her mother read her a story. Jessica knew her favourite almost off by heart, and, as she read, it was other words she kept hearing in her head. ‘Having babies must be catching, mustn’t it?’ ‘If only it was,’ she thought. She was a fortnight late with her period, but she was forty-six, well past the age when women usually bore children, an age when she could expect her periods to go haywire. It might be the change. She’d thought it was the menopause the last time, but it had turned out she was expecting Penny. ‘I’ll try not to think about it,’ she decided. ‘Then I won’t be too disappointed if it turns out to be a false alarm.’
Jessica kissed her daughter’s silky hair. ‘Would you like a little brother or sister, sweetheart?’ she whispered, but Penny wasn’t interested. ‘No, Mummy, want biccy,’ she said.
‘You’ve left something out,’ said Jessica sternly.
‘Want biccy, Mummy, please.’
Saturday dawned dull and misty; feathery grey clouds flitted swiftly across the sky, occasionally revealing a brief, tantalising glimpse of the yellow sun behind.
In Melling, a mist still hung in the air at two o’clock, when the garden party was due to start. There were stalls at the front manned by several local women: one stall for handicrafts, the other laden with an inviting selection of home-made cakes and jam, jars of pickled cabbage and beetroot, and strawberries and rhubarb from Eileen’s garden. A stone hot water bottle, two rarely seen and highly desirable lemons, and a set of notepaper and envelopes, comprised the raffle prizes.
By half past two, both front and back gardens were crowded and the stalls were almost bare. Trestle tables had been set up on the lawn at the back, and Eileen was busy in the back kitchen making tea.
‘Where did all this stuff come from, luv?’ Jack Doyle asked when he saw the heap of sandwiches and scones.
‘The committee made it, Dad, the Melling Aid to Russia committee. I joined a few weeks ago. It seemed the least I could do, seeing as how that’s where Nick is.’
To Jack’s relief, she looked more her old self than she’d done for a long time. She wore a nice white blouse and a flowered skirt, and her blonde hair was tied back with a pink ribbon. Her cheeks, so pale and drawn recently, were flushed, and her big blue eyes were bright with excitement. She’d heard from Nick a few days before, and although the letter was three months old, at
least
it meant that in March he’d been alive and well, though he couldn’t stand the cruel Russian weather.