Guarded Passions (12 page)

Even those soldiers who had been so badly maimed or injured that they could never hope to resume a normal life again, seemed optimistic that everything would soon be back to normal and their harrowing experiences would be just a hazy dream.

By the evening, after hearing on the wireless that the King and Queen, the two princesses, and the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had appeared on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, to wave to the cheering crowds who thronged the Mall, even Helen felt light-hearted, and laughed and joked as she attended to routine duties.

The thought of Adam coming back into her life scared her and she wondered just how soon it would be before he was demobbed. Some said it was to be ‘first in, first out' so there was just the chance that he would be home by midsummer.

Helen had no idea where they would live. She hoped Aunt Julia would let them stay on at Willow Cottage until they found a home of their own.

So much would depend on what sort of job Adam managed to get. Helen had saved every penny of her Army allowance and had even managed to add some of her nursing pay to it, but, even so, it wouldn't go very far, since they didn't own a single item of furniture. She supposed she should have kept some of the furniture from her parents' home, but she hadn't done so because she wanted to have a completely fresh start.

Helen read Adam's letter through twice, unable to believe that he was coming home at last. All the fears and frustrations she had bottled up for so long, came to the fore. She felt choked and tears streamed down her cheeks as a sense of panic swept through her, leaving her weak and trembling.

She wondered if he would think she had changed. Would he even recognise her! She sighed, remembering how young and carefree she'd been in those far-off days. She was no longer the fresh-faced eighteen-year-old with her hair in a plait. Tragedy, heartache and nursing sick men, many of whom had died from their injuries, had matured her. She certainly felt older, and she was sure such traumas had left their mark.

Folding the letter, she slipped it back in its envelope and placed it on top of the bundle in her dressing-table drawer. Leaning forward she studied her face in the mirror and fresh doubts churned in her mind about how Adam would feel when he saw her. She
had
changed. Frowning, she traced the dark shadows under her grey eyes and the hard, tight lines around her mouth.

I look more like thirty-five than twenty, she thought critically. Even my figure has altered. She was more rounded, more mature. She had never regained her youthful slimness after her miscarriage. At the time she had felt far too depressed to worry about such a triviality. Now, with Adam on his way home, she was aware of how she had neglected herself and was worried in case he was disappointed when they met.

She reread his letter again to check when he was due to arrive. The line ‘probably within a couple of days of this letter' caught her eye and sent fresh alarm signals pulsing through her. There was no time for even a crash diet!

Opening her wardrobe she riffled through the clothes hanging there, panic mounting as she realised she had nothing special to wear. She spent so much time in uniform that she had bought nothing new for ages, not since Paris was liberated when, believing Adam would be home almost any day, she had spent her carefully hoarded coupons on a new dress. That was now almost two years ago.

She had refused to build her hopes after VE Day, because she half expected Adam to be sent to the Far East. Instead, he had remained with the Rhine Army of Occupation. He was still in Germany the following August when the Allies had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The horrifying reports and newspaper pictures of the devastation and suffering had sickened her, even though it had brought an immediate end to the war.

Even after Japan had capitulated, Adam had still not returned home, so Helen had worn her new dress whenever she was off-duty just to cheer herself up.

Although their letters were no longer censored, they never regained their initial warmth. Each time Helen wrote she tried to tell Adam how much she wanted him home, but she could never find the right words and ended up penning her usual bland note. A page of nothingness, the sort of letter she could just as well have written to a cousin or a casual aquaintance.

Adam's letters to her were just as colourless. She longed desperately for him to tell her how much he wanted to see her and how he was counting the days until he was home with her at last. Each time a letter with BAOR franking on the envelope arrived, she would delay opening it, deluding herself that this time it really would be that sort of letter.

She had even done that with the letter she had just opened. Aunt Julia had brought it upstairs while she was dressing for work. Helen had propped it up on the dressing-table, fantasised about what it would say, then left it there when she had gone down to breakfast. She had gone off to Bulpitts and forgotten all about it, and it was not until she had gone upstairs to put a hot-water bottle in her bed that night, that she had noticed it was still lying there on the dressing-table.

As she slit it open, she expected it to be Adam's routine note, so at first the words didn't register. When she checked the postmark, she was filled with a mixture of excitement and panic. It had been written over a week ago, so he could arrive at almost any time.

Where would he sleep? She giggled a little hysterically. Surely Aunt Julia wouldn't expect him to sleep on his own in the small box room up under the eaves of Willow Cottage? Yet they could hardly share her single bed!

A loud knocking at the front door startled her and she froze momentarily. Then, her heart pounding, she raced to answer it, stumbling and slipping on the narrow twisting stairs in her haste.

‘Adam,' she whispered to the tall figure standing on the step. ‘Adam is it really you?'

‘Helen!' He dropped the kit-bag from his shoulder and held out his arms to embrace her. Shuddering, she leant against him, finding comfort against his solid chest and strong arms.

‘Oh Adam, Adam …' Tears trickled down her cheeks, as a deep feeling of relief flowed through her veins, leaving her weak but happy.

With child-like simplicity she raised her face invitingly. His lips were cool from the night air, firm, yet gentle. As their pressure increased she felt waves of desire burn through her body, from her fingertips to her toes.

Adam's hold on her tightened and he groaned as he tore himself away, then immediately kissed her again, as if afraid she might vanish.

‘Come on inside,' she murmured in a dazed whisper.

Keeping one arm around her waist, Adam picked up his kit-bag from the front step and put it inside the hall.

‘You don't still have blackout do you?' he asked in surprise as she closed the front door before switching on the hall light.

‘No!' She laughed nervously. ‘Not for ages now. It's just habit.' She led him into the cosy sitting-room where Aunt Julia was sitting in a comfortable armchair by a crackling log fire.

‘Adam!' she gasped in surprise. ‘I had no idea you were on your way home … welcome back!'

‘Thank you. It's good to be here.'

‘Have you come far?'

‘From Germany – and I'm ravenous. I couldn't get anything on the train from London. In fact, I've only had a snack since first thing this morning.'

Helen moved quickly towards the door. ‘I'll get you something to eat. .. you two have a chat.'

‘Nonsense! You're the ones who have a lot to say to each other,' Aunt Julia declared. ‘You come and sit down with Adam, and leave the kitchen to me.'

‘All right.' Helen suddenly felt shy and tongue-tied. In the light of the sitting-room Adam seemed almost a stranger. He had removed his greatcoat and cap and seemed much more powerfully built than she remembered. His long, muscular legs emphasised his slim hips and she noticed how his khaki battledress top strained across his broad shoulders and chest.

She studied his face. His shock of dark hair was as thick as ever and his eyes as intensely blue as she remembered them, but he looked older and there was a leanness that gave his cheek-bones a new prominence.

Adam stood motionless for a few seconds, feasting his eyes on Helen, then, almost roughly, he clasped her to him and held her face between his hands. Burning with passion, his lips fused with hers, gently at first, then with increasing pressure, until she felt she was being sucked into an inferno. Her knees weakened and she leant against him, feeling the heat from his body burn into her. Gently she restrained him, twisting her head sideways so that his lips slid from her mouth to her ear where they nuzzled the lobe, sending shivers of delight through her. Again she curbed his ardour, holding his face tight between her own hands, the sharpness of stubble under her fingertips making her acutely conscious of his masculinity.

‘Later Adam, later,' she murmured, as her gaze met his. ‘Aunt Julia will be back in a moment.'

He released her without speaking and sat down on the settee, patting the cushion beside him as Aunt Julia came bustling back with a bowl of hot soup and some sandwiches. While Adam tucked in, Helen made coffee for them all and brought in a plate of home-made cakes.

His hunger eased, Adam began to relate some of his experiences: the months of delay on the south coast when all leave was cancelled and they expected each day to be sent overseas; the build-up to D-Day; the crossing to France and the long summer of fighting. When Paris had been liberated, towards the end of August, he had thought it would soon be over and he would be going home again. Instead, he told them, that was the time when, for him, the war had really begun. As the Army began to advance across Europe it had been every man for himself. Living conditions had been haphazard. They had slept in barns, disused farmhouses, or even in the back of their trucks. Army rations were supplemented by whatever they could find or scrounge.

‘When we liberated villages in Belgium or West Germany we often felt so sorry for the children that we gave them our own rations. To see those kids' faces light up when you gave them a bar of chocolate, or a tin of fruit, was incredible,' Adam said, smiling as he reminisced.

On VE Day he had been in Celle and was still there when the Japs capitulated after the Hiroshima bomb was dropped.

‘There were a lot of Americans stationed there, too,' he told them, ‘and they went absolutely wild with joy. They even packed their kit ready for home! I warned them they were being optimistic and, of course, I was right.'

‘Are you home for good now?' Aunt Julia asked.

‘Well, no … not exactly.' Adam moved uncomfortably in his seat, looking apprehensively at Helen.

‘You mean you're only on leave?' Helen asked in dismay.

‘Sort of.' He hesitated again, as if unsure whether or not to say more.

‘Well, I'm off to bed,' Aunt Julia announced diplomatically. ‘It's good to have you safely home, Adam. I'm afraid you'll have to share Helen's single bed tonight. Tomorrow we must make some better arrangement.'

‘We'll manage, Aunt Julia,' Helen assured her. ‘Goodnight.'

They sat in companionable silence, Adam's arm around Helen, her head resting against his chest, listening to the creaking of the stairs and the floorboards overhead, until Aunt Julia settled into bed. Then Adam reached out and switched off the lamp on the table beside him.

Helen waited, feeling as nervous as if she was on her very first date. Her mouth felt dry and her heart was thudding so loudly against her rib cage that she was sure Adam must hear it.

When he tenderly scooped her up in his arms, laid her on the sheepskin rug in front of the fire's glowing embers and began to unbutton the front of her dress, she offered no resistance.

The warmth of his breath on her exposed neck rekindled the desire she had felt earlier in the evening. And when his lips began gently to explore the whole length of her throat, finally coming to rest in the warm hollow between her breasts, she murmured with delight.

As his fingers fumbled with the fastenings on her dress, she eagerly undid them for him. Her need was as great as his and now her shyness was gone. Eagerly, she unbuttoned his khaki shirt, feeling the heat from his broad chest burning beneath her hands.

She moaned with ecstasy as his mouth travelled over her naked flesh. The exquisite pleasure as he paused to salute each erect nipple before moving further down her body, sent shudders of sensual excitement flooding through her.

Her desire increased as Adam grasped her body tightly to his own, flattening the rounded swell of her breasts against his hard chest, firmly prising her legs apart with one of his own. Then his hands slid down her back, cupping her towards him in a firm decisive hold so that their bodies united of their own volition. She could hear her own breath rasping as she matched her rhythm with his powerful strokes and the exhilaration built up to a crescendo of passion that left her gasping. Waves of blackness obliterated even the glowing embers of the fire as Adam rolled from her and collapsed at her side.

Her happiness was complete when, with supreme effort, he raised himself on one arm and gently kissed her on the mouth.

Adam's leave flew by. They spent much of it walking in the countryside around Sturbury. The autumn days, though short, were warm and colourful. The trees and hedgerows, an ever-changing panorama of vivid golds, reds, oranges and browns, delighted their eyes and filled Helen's heart with joy. She felt that sharing the beauty of the glorious landscape with Adam was a way of celebrating that he had been one of the lucky ones who had come through the war unscathed, when so many had been killed or injured.

Often, when she woke before him, Helen would hear Adam mumbling in his sleep and realise how much the memories of war haunted him. Powerless to help, she would lay cool fingers on his brow, or gently stroke his face, hoping to erase from his mind whatever was troubling him. Although he never spoke of it, she sensed he still mourned the loss of his brother, Gary.