Far From Home (32 page)

On Saturday, 20 March, David's Commemorative Mass was held in St Margaret Mary's Church, which was packed. The Masons came, some RAF chaps who had been friends of David's, work colleagues of Kate's, and neighbours, including Phoebe Jenkins and even John and Rita Taylor, as Sally and Susie had gone to tell them what had happened. The priest was astounded at the turnout. ‘He must have been a very popular man,' he said to Susie in the porch. ‘One that will be sadly missed.'

‘Oh, he will be missed all right,' Susie said. ‘It's hard for me to think I will never see him again. Kate is bearing up very well, but inside she is still suffering. You can see it in her eyes. As for being popular, a person would be hard to please all right if they didn't like David, yet his own parents didn't seem to have any time for him. They have not come today, though Kate told them the date and the time. They love only David's elder brother Lawrence.'

‘Do they attend any other church?' Father Trelawney asked. ‘Kate told me David didn't.'

‘No,' Susie said. ‘That's not it, Father. Most of these filling the pews today don't go to church on any sort of a regular basis. They are here today to support Kate. David's parents obviously could not be bothered.'

‘Families,' the priest said. ‘A long time ago I decided I wasn't even going to try and understand them. Shall we go in now?'

Father Trelawney stopped on the way down the aisle and asked Kate if she was all right. She answered him with a tremulous smile and said that she was fine, but thanked him for asking. Sally knew that Kate liked the priest. She was glad, for it might mean that she would go back to church. She would be relieved if she did for Sally was still worried about her sister's immortal soul.

But thinking of immortal souls brought her mother to mind, and the reply she had received from her just the other day. She had been so excited when she had seen a letter in her mother's hand addressed to her on the mat as she came down ready for work. She was, however, apprehensive about what her mother might say and she knew that she needed to open it when she was alone, so she had slipped it into her pocket without a word to Kate about it.

At dinner time that day, Sally escaped to the washroom, and in one of the cubicles she opened the letter from her mother. Philomena thanked Sally for writing and letting her know about the tragedy of David's death and said she hoped that she was being a support to her sister. She said she would write to Kate and it would do them both good to go home to Ireland for a good rest. Sally's heart leapt at that because she said
both of them
: that must mean that she was partly forgiven. She clutched the pages to her chest and closed her eyes. ‘Oh, thank you, God,' she whispered, for she had prayed for her mother to forgive her over and over.

However, her mother's next sentence shocked her to
the core and ensured that Kate would never be able to read this letter, for she said that though Kate was probably upset about this man she called her husband, when she was over it and more herself, she would probably see it as a blessing in disguise, since the man was a Protestant and mixed marriages never worked.

Sally held the letter in her hand a moment longer. She had waited many years for her mother to say she could go home again, and she would have liked to have kept that important letter and maybe read it again.

But then with a sigh she ripped it into little pieces and threw it down the toilet and flushed it away, in case Kate might see it and be upset.

‘Mammy asks me in every letter when I am going home,' Kate said to Susie a few months later as they climbed on the tram to go to work.

‘Well, why don't you go?' Susie said. ‘It would do you good. The bombing is over and done and you always said that you wouldn't go before because Sally wasn't invited, but you say she is now.'

‘Yes,' Kate said. ‘It happened after David died. She wrote to Mammy, you know.'

‘Yes,' Susie said. ‘I addressed the envelope.'

‘Oh, so that's how she got Mammy to open it,' Kate said. ‘I did wonder.'

‘And she started the letter pleading with your mother to read it because it was about you.'

‘Well, whatever she said, it worked,' Kate said. ‘Mind, I don't think Sally would want to go home just now. She has her head turned with all these Americans flooding into the dance halls these days. She says she's glad she went to those dance classes. Mind you, the Americans have their own way of dancing.'

‘Haven't they their own way of doing most things?'

‘Yeah they have,' said Kate with a smile. ‘But even Sally was a bit shocked. She says the boys shoot you through their legs and send you into a spin sometimes, held above their head so that your knickers are on show.'

‘I say,' Susie said, and added with a laugh: ‘Wouldn't do to forget to put them on one night.'

‘Oh, I would say definitely not,' Kate said. ‘I did ask her about it, but she said they are just having fun.'

‘And let's face it, they've had little enough of that, these youngsters,' Susie said. ‘And until the Americans landed, they were very badly off for partners.'

‘Yeah, they were,' Kate agreed. ‘Course, Sally wouldn't even have gone to dance classes, never mind proper dances, had I not nearly pushed her out of the house.'

‘Because of Phil?'

‘Yes, showing lack of respect or something,' Kate said. ‘And then when we had news of David's death, she stopped going out again. She said that back in Ireland some have a year of mourning – and I remember that myself. I wonder if the one who died wanted people to do that. Neither Phil, nor David certainly, would have wanted Sally to stay in for weeks on end, and I told her that straight.'

‘What about you and our weekly trips to the cinema? Is it too early for you?'

Kate shook her head. ‘No, not really,' she said, though there was little enthusiasm in her voice. ‘I would quite like to see
Dumbo
by Walt Disney if it is on anywhere. I know it's a bit daft wanting to see the story of an elephant at our age, but it's been out a while now and it seems everyone has seen it but us.'

Susie would have much preferred
Casablanca
, but she didn't say that because this was about getting Kate to start going out again and living without David, and so she said, ‘Who says we're daft wanting to see a cartoon at our age? Maybe that's what we want in life, a bit of lightness and fun. I'll scour the paper tonight. I'm sure it will be on somewhere.' She scrutinized her friend's face then and said, ‘You're sure now that this isn't going to be too hard for you. That it's a bit too soon?'

Kate shook her head. What she could have said was that the hardest thing for her was seeing Nick, who had come home to convalesce, when the hospital had finished with him, after David had been dead a month or so. He had come to see Kate straight away, as she had expected him to, and she was glad he'd come alone. He'd expressed his deep distress at the death of his oldest and dearest friend. ‘Your loss must be a grievous one,' he'd said. ‘For David was the best friend a man could have and there is not a day goes by when I don't miss him. For you it must be harder still.'

‘I still miss him as much as I ever did,' Kate had admitted. ‘I have it down to a bearable ache a lot of the time, but it is always there.' She had raised her face to Nick's and said plaintively, ‘Sometimes the memories leap into my head and catch me unawares and I feel the emptiness that surrounds me now that he is gone.'

Nick had held her tight and they had cried together and she'd found it a relief to talk about David and mourn his passing with someone who didn't think that she should have got over his death. She knew there was no time limit on such things. Despite this, though, she
had avoided the Masons' until Nick had gone. She didn't resent the happiness and closeness between Nick and her good friend, but it was too painful to witness, so though they urged her to go out with them, or to come to the house for a meal, she always refused and they never pressed her.

‘It's great to think that Nick won't be part of any more sorties, isn't it?' Susie said, jerking Kate back into the present.

She nodded dumbly, knowing that had David survived it would have been his last sortie too. Susie had told her that. When Nick's one week of convalescence was over, he didn't return to the Castle Bromwich airfield, but to one down south. That's all he could tell her because that was all he knew. As seasoned veterans, both he and David were due to be transferred to train other fighter pilots. ‘D'you think David knew that?' Kate asked Susie.

‘I very much doubt it,' Susie said. ‘They didn't tell them anything in advance, did they? I suppose they were working on the assumption that, if they are captured, they can't tell what they don't know. Nick wasn't told until he was recovering in the hospital. I couldn't have been more pleased. He won't get home as often, of course, but he is slightly safer – though the southern airfields do get quite a pounding at times.'

‘He can't tell you that surely?'

‘No, course not, and I don't even know where he's stationed, anyway, but they write about the raids in the paper and it is on the wireless too.'

Kate so wished that David had returned in one piece and was now working alongside Nick in some airfield
somewhere, training others to take the risks they had taken often, but it would not help to share those thoughts. David's troubles were now over. He was at peace and she must concentrate on that, and so what she said was, ‘Well, thank God, the raids are over for us at last.'

‘Oh, yes, I can echo that,' Susie said. ‘And it means we can go out and about without a worry. And there is summer to look forward to. Look at today – the sun shining from a blue sky and you could forget that there was a war on at all.'

‘Until you start shopping,' Kate said, though she had to admit that the government introducing dried milk in the winter was a boon, because milk was rationed. Dried milk was nothing like the real thing, but meant that you could always get a cup of tea before you set out in the morning, particularly important if the weather was exceptionally cold or wet.

‘And we have got dried egg in the shops now, courtesy of the Americans.'

‘We have lots of things courtesy of the Americans,' Kate said a little gloomily. ‘Namely, GIs with their silver tongues, reminiscent of people you only see on the cinema screen. Their uniforms are much smarter than our boys', they have more money, and gifts of nylons, chocolate and chewing gum are given to the chosen few. Do you know how they were described to me the other day by the grocer's wife?' And at Susie's shake of her head she went on: ‘Overpaid, oversexed and over here – and I don't think she was far wrong.'

‘Oh, cranky Kate,' Susie mocked gently. ‘You are in the dumps and I definitely think that watching the antics
of a flying elephant with overlarge ears is just what you need at this moment.' Kate knew Susie had a point: she was being a grump and it wasn't Susie's fault that David was dead and that she was feeling life was quite meaningless, and she knew she had to snap out of it.

They found out that the only cinema showing
Dumbo
was the Odeon in Sutton Coldfield, which meant a small tram ride to Erdington Village and then a Midland Red bus from there into the Royal Town. ‘I've never been anywhere in Sutton, but the park,' Kate said to Susie.

‘I went a few times to the cinema when I was younger,' Susie said. ‘And one thing I do remember is that the bus stops just outside it and before the town itself, so we haven't a chance of getting lost or anything.'

It was just as Susie said, and the film was good, and Kate laughed as loudly as the rest; and though she got a bit weepy when Dumbo and his mother were separated, she had cheered up by the end. She got on the bus going home with a sigh of contentment. Even Susie, who had gone to see
Dumbo
under sufferance to please Kate, had been impressed by the film, which she had enjoyed very much, though even if she hadn't, it had been worth the trek to see a smile on Kate's face for once.

 

‘Are you going out?' Kate said a few days later, seeing Sally getting dolled up. ‘You don't usually go out on a Monday.'

‘I know, but this girl at work is twenty-one, and she wants us all to go to the Palace with her.'

‘The Palace?'

‘You know the cinema in Erdington's High Street? Well, there's a ballroom above that.'

‘Is there?' Kate said. ‘I never knew that.'

‘Ah, well, that shows you don't know everything,' Sally said with a grave shake of her head.

‘Cheeky young whippersnapper,' Kate said, giving her younger sister a push. ‘Let's have some respect for your elders for a change before you go off gallivanting.'

‘You don't mind, do you?' Sally said.

‘No, I don't mind,' Kate said. ‘Why should I?'

‘Thought you might be lonely or something.'

‘Of course not,' Kate said. ‘Go on, for goodness' sake. You can't let the poor girl down.'

‘Huh,' said Sally, ‘I'd say she's hoping a load of American soldiers will come. If they do, she won't care whether we're there or not.'

‘Do many Americans go there then?'

‘So people say. That's why she chose it,' Sally said. ‘Apparently, they come down on the Midland Red bus. The same one you got to go to the pictures the other night. It runs from St George's Barracks in Sutton Coldfield into Erdington.'

‘Well, have a good time then.'

‘Oh, Kate, why don't you come with me?' Sally said, suddenly feeling a little guilty for leaving her sister on her own.

‘Oh, no,' Kate said. ‘I wouldn't feel right. Anyway, you young things don't want the likes of me there.'

‘God, Kate,' Sally said with a laugh. ‘Anyone would think that you are as old as Methuselah.'

Kate smiled. ‘I feel a bit like it sometimes,' she said. ‘Don't forget, last month I was twenty-five.'

‘Oh, shock horror,' Sally cried. ‘What a great age.'

‘It's a quarter of a century.'

‘That's nothing. Come on? Shake a leg?'

‘No, thanks love,' Kate said. ‘I might pop over to Aston and have a look in at the rest centre and see if everyone is okay.'

‘You're not on duty tonight,' Sally reminded her. ‘You are like a mother hen with that place.'

‘Maybe I am,' Kate conceded. ‘But you know how I like to keep busy. Anyway, a lot of these Americans are too flashy and brash for me. You watch what you're doing with them too, Sally.'

‘No need to worry about me, Kate,' Sally said. ‘I like to have fun but I'm not an utter fool. I know what they want in return for presents of nylons and chocolate. They are here to fight a war and one day they will disappear. Some girls don't seem to realize that and some believe everything they say and everything they promise.'

‘And you don't?'

‘Not likely I don't.'

‘And what if one of them catches your heart.'

‘No chance of that.' Sally and her bantering tone was gone when she said, ‘I once gave my heart to Phillip Reynard, and to part with it again it would have to be someone pretty special. There is no one that I will allow myself to have even a passing fancy for until this bloody war is over.'

‘Oh, that is so sensible,' Kate said, and gave her a kiss. ‘Now go on and enjoy yourself.

‘Are you sure you won't come?'

‘Positive.'

When Sally had gone, though, suddenly Kate felt lonely. She had made no plans to go to Aston; she had just said that off the top of her head. She had no plans at all really. She knew she could go to the Masons', she'd always be welcome there. Then again, she didn't have to go out at all because she had a good book from the library and the wireless might have an entertaining play or concert. But she knew she was too restless to stay in and the night was a fine one. How pleasant to  walk the streets when the air was not filled with smoke and cordite and gas and the summer night not ablaze with fires. She put on her short jacket, picked up her handbag and closed the door behind her.

She walked down Slade Road to Salford Bridge over the network of canals. She stopped for a while there and watched the brightly coloured canal boats wend their way through the water. The late summer sun even lent the torpid, oil-slicked water a sheen, so that the scene was pleasant looking and peaceful, but she knew that she was looking at it through rose-tinted glasses and with a sigh she left the canals. Then, thinking that as she was so close she would look in on the hostel anyway, she walked on towards Aston Park. There was a light on in the office in the hostel that was just off the entrance hall, and Kate popped her head around the door. ‘Hallo, Kate,' Rita said, as she sat at the desk surrounded by papers. ‘This is a nice surprise.'

‘You're working late,' Kate said.

‘Paperwork,' Rita said. ‘You know what it's like with this flipping war, forms for this and forms for that and not enough hours in the day and no peace at all. An hour in here in the evening is like four spent in
the day when I am up and down and at everyone's beck and call.'

‘Where's John?'

‘Fixing a leaking bath,' Rita said. ‘But he's no good with the paperwork anyway, and the times he has attempted it, I've had to do it again. Much more the practical type is John. Didn't know it was quite so late though,' she said, glancing at the clock. ‘Nearly half nine look.'