Where the Heart Is (28 page)

She shouldn’t be critical of her mother, she told herself. It had been dreadfully hard on her, having everyone know that her husband had left her, and had led to her mother seeking solace in drink, something Bella would never ever have expected from her oh-so-correct and proper parent. That had been a truly terrible time and Bella was thankful that it was over and that her mother had reverted to her old self, even if that did mean that she never seemed to stop complaining and expected Bella to be at her beck and call. Bella was grateful to her mother’s WVS colleagues for their forbearance in welcoming her back in their midst and treating her as though nothing untoward had ever taken place.

It was a beautiful bright sunny morning and Bella had promised herself that once she had
finished her paperwork she was going to go into the garden. Since her father had left there was no one to keep the lawn in its once pristine state and Bella had come to an arrangement with the people whose garden backed onto their own that the husband could extend his vegetable plot into their garden, if in return he would give a share of his produce to Bella and her mother. It was an arrangement that was working extremely well, keeping them supplied in fresh vegetables and salad ingredients, as well as eggs from his hens.

Bella unlocked and then opened the door, her lips forming a polite smile, only for her eyes to widen when she saw both Bettina and Maria standing on the doorstep, their faces shadowed by the brims of their hats. She might not be able to see their expressions but Bella knew what must have brought them.

‘Jan? You’ve had news?’ she guessed as she ushered them inside.

There was only one kind of news it could be. The authorities must have found Jan’s body. Pain seized Bella’s heart, wringing it with the agony of her loss.

‘Who is it, Bella?’ her mother was demanding querulously from the kitchen.

‘We can talk in here,’ Bella told her visitors, pushing open the door to her mother’s precious front room and gesturing for them to go inside. ‘Let me take your hats and coats and then I’ll go and make us a cup of tea.’

‘Bella, please, wait a minute,’ Bettina begged her.

‘Bella, who is it?’

Bella looked down the hallway towards the kitchen, but Bettina’s hand was on her arm, her expression determined, and Bella’s heart overruled her head. Ignoring her mother’s demand Bella nodded to Bettina and then went to the door, closing it, blocking out the sound of her mother’s voice.

‘We’ve had news,’ Bettina told her unnecessarily. ‘It came this morning.’ Mother and daughter looked at one another.

‘We … wanted to come and tell you straight away.’

As though she couldn’t wait any longer, Maria burst out, ‘Jan’s alive, Bella.’

Alive?

Bella felt her legs buckle with the shock. As though she knew what she was feeling, Maria reached for her, putting her arm around her, her voice tender as she told her, ‘It is true, Bella. Jan is alive.’

It was left to Bettina to continue the story.

‘He’s a prisoner of war, Bella. Apparently his plane crashed in France, not over the Channel. He bailed out and was captured by the Germans. Fortunately it seems that he wasn’t injured.’

‘A prisoner of war?’ Bella didn’t know what to think. First had come the joy of knowing that he was alive, but now she was afraid for him, her spirits plummeting. ‘He’s all right, though, isn’t he?’ she demanded. ‘He’s well, and … the Germans have to abide by the Geneva Convention.’

Once again Bettina and Maria exchanged looks.

‘They do, but Jan is, of course, Polish, not British.’

‘That doesn’t make any difference surely? The Geneva Convention applies to all prisoners of war.’

None of them wanted to say what they were all thinking, namely that they had all read of the terribly suffering endured by the POWs taken by the Japanese. Not everyone obeyed the rules. Who could you trust to do so?

‘All we know is that the Red Cross have confirmed that he’s a prisoner of war,’ Bettina told her. ‘But we can write to him and send him parcels. We’ve brought the address for you.’

Tears brimmed in Bella’s eyes as she took the piece of paper Bettina was holding out to her.

Jan was alive. It was a miracle.

Maria hugged her fiercely and then so did Bettina.

‘I’m afraid to let myself believe it, in case it isn’t true,’ Bella told them.

‘It is true,’ Bettina assured her firmly. ‘Jan is alive, Bella.’

Alive but a prisoner of war. A Polish prisoner of war. Would that make any difference? Would it mean he would be in more danger than British POWs? As a prisoner of war he would be protected by the Geneva Convention, Bella repeated inwardly to herself after Bettina and Maria had gone, as though somehow those words alone had the power to protect Jan and keep him safe.

It was over. Brandon was gone, his life slipping slowly away from him as the August afternoon had given way to evening and sunset, but Francine was still holding Brandon’s hand–cold and waxen now within her own–as she had done throughout this long sad day.

Tears filled her eyes and ran slowly down her face–not for herself but for him, for Brandon, who had had so little of the life he should have had and who surely had deserved more. He had been a good person, a kind, loving, generous person, a person who would have made a good husband and a good father.

Life could be so cruel.

She used her free hand to wipe away her tears before leaning over to kiss his forehead.

Already death was making its mark on his features, softening and blurring them.

The nurse–one of two who had been with them for the last three days, providing twenty-four-hour care for Brandon–came back into the room.

‘There’ll be things you’ll need to do,’ Francine acknowledged, gently slipping her hand from Brandon’s and then folding his against his chest on top of the bedcover.

There were things she had to do as well, things she and Brandon had been through together so that she would know exactly what his wishes were.

He had wanted to be buried here in London but Francine had spoken to the Ambassador and between them they had persuaded him to agree that his body should be sent home for burial at Arlington Cemetery.

‘I’m no fallen hero,’ he had objected.

But Francine had pushed aside his objection, telling him tenderly, ‘You will be with others there, Brandon, with your own people.’ And she had seen that he knew what she meant, and that she had not wanted him to lie perhaps one day forgotten in an unloved grave in a foreign land. At Arlington he would be with the young and the brave, young men like himself whose lives had been cut short by war. The only difference was that their war would be a war against other men whilst Brandon’s had been against an enemy mightier than any mere flesh, blood and bone.

There was to be no formal funeral service–Brandon hadn’t wanted that, and nor, he had told her, did he want her wearing black.

‘I want to think about you singing and looking beautiful, just like when I first saw you.’

Francine had to bite down hard on her bottom lip to stop herself from crying again.

* * *

‘Anyone in here by the name of Campion?’

Lou looked up from the service she was doing on one of the planes that were used to train new flying instructors. The pilots attending the school had all finished their tour of operations and were now being retrained as flying instructors. Lou loved the work she was now doing even more than she had expected to do. It was wonderful to think that she was finally part of the war effort.

The plane she had been working on was the very first one she had been set to work on when she had first arrived at the base at the beginning of August, and was one of her favourites because of the way it had made it easy for her to pass the eagle-eyed inspection of her new sergeant. Every plane had its own idiosyncrasies and some of them were hell to work on, but not this one. She was sweet and sunny-natured, no matter what indignities raw new pilots heaped on her.

Pushing her cap back on her curls, Lou reached for a rag to wipe her oily hands as she looked towards the open doors to the hangar where the young woman who had made the enquiry was standing, her hands on her hips in a stance of careless arrogance.

‘Watch out, she’s one of those posh ATA girls,’ Hilary, the girl Lou was working with, who had been at base for longer than she, warned her. ‘You know, the ones that fly the new planes in and that sort of thing.’ Hilary gave a disparaging sniff. ‘Think they’re the bee’s knees, that lot do.’

Acknowledging Hilary’s advice, Lou made her way to the front of the hangar.

The woman waiting for her was wearing flying kit but had removed her helmet so that her sunstreaked hair was catching the light. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but Lou knew that she had never met her before. She was older than Lou–in her late twenties, Lou guessed–and her voice when she asked, ‘You’re Campion?’ as Lou approached was very definitely, as Hilary had warned Lou, ‘posh'.

‘Yes.’

‘Good-oh. I’m Verity Maitland,’ she announced, extending her hand for Lou to shake. M’brother, George, asked me to look you up. To look you up and take you up, in fact.’ She laughed at her own joke. ‘Don’t have much time right now, I’m afraid. I’ve got to get back up to a certain factory ready to start transporting some new planes down, along with some of the other gals, but since I’m here I thought I might as well introduce myself.’

Lou’s eyes widened. So this was the ‘something’ the squadron leader had said he thought he could do, Lou guessed.

They were outside the hangar now, and Verity Maitland was opening a packet of cigarettes and offering Lou one.

Lou shook her head, too bemused to say anything. Lighting a cigarette, Verity inhaled, arching her throat and tossing her hair before exhaling again. Her nails were painted a bright glossy red, and Lou remembered reading somewhere that the ATA girls prided themselves on being ‘glamorous’ whilst also being first-rate pilots.

‘It’s just too bloody, all this fuss about not
wanting women to fly. Daddy thinks it’s frightfully funny. He taught both Georgie and me years ago. Look, when’s your next off-duty?’

Lou thought quickly and then told her.

‘Well, if you haven’t already made some plans why don’t I pop down here with my own plane then and take you up for a spin? What do you say?’

Somehow Lou managed to stammer a disbelieving, ‘Yes.’

‘Good-oh. Must go. See you next week.’

‘That was quick,’ Hilary commented, when Lou returned to the hangar. ‘What did she want? A fuel refill?’

Lou thought it best to nod.

‘Thought so,’ Hilary sniffed again, as Lou went back to working on the engine of her plane.

Later on in the day, Lou and Hilary did genuinely have fuel refills to do, when six planes from a Coastal Defence squadron came in for refuelling, and Lou and Hilary were called on to assist the regular refuelling team.

The first task was to cycle out to where the planes were refuelled, and then help to get the aviation bowsers in place, before climbing up onto the wing to uncap the fuel tank, ready to start refilling the planes’ tanks. Naturally the girls all wore their uniform trousers or overalls for this kind of work. It still made Lou smile when she remembered how, when she had first been given her kit, one of the other girls had told her that the reason their greatcoats were lined with white wool was so that aircrews could place these coats
lining up on the ground after a forced landing so that the white lining could be picked up at night by those looking for them.

Not that Lou needed her greatcoat on a hot August day like today, with the heat of the sun being reflected back from the hot metal of the wing, as she kneeled on it to unscrew the fuel tank cap, screwing her eyes up against the bright light as she did so. The pilot, who was climbing out of the cockpit, probably, Lou imagined, intending to use the break to make a call of nature and grab a cup of tea from the Naafi if he was quick, removed his flying helmet.

Lou froze in shocked recognition.

Kieran Mallory. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. It couldn’t be, surely? But a swift second glance confirmed that it was.

Her face on fire and her heart thudding with panic and dread in case he recognised her, Lou’s normally deft fingers became awkward and stiff, the cap clattering onto the wing and rolling away from her as it finally came free and she dropped it.

She knew that the noise had Kieran looking at her because she could see the movement of his shadow on the wing. Desperate not to be recognised, Lou huddled over, tucking her chin into her, praying that he could go away so that she could get on with the refuelling and retrieve the cap, but instead to her dismay she saw his shadow leaning over the cap, his lean fingers closing round it.

His command to her to ‘Catch’ was delivered with an amused and teasing nonchalant mockery that left her with a split-second decision to make
and two equally unwanted options–either to catch it and risk exposing herself or to let it fall and risk the humiliation of missing it.

Luck was on her side, though, because another pilot coming past caught it for her, placing it down on the wing as he went by, calling out to Kieran as he hurried to join him, ‘That was a good kill of yours the other night, Mall…’

It was safe for her to turn round now, Lou knew, but she had better things to do than gaze after Kieran Mallory like some stage-struck girl mooning over a handsome matinée idol, even if Kieran did have matinée idol good looks; better things like filling the fuel tank of his plane so that she didn’t have to be around when he came back.

The shock of seeing him wiped out the excitement she had felt earlier, leaving her anxious and vulnerable. What was the matter with her? She wasn’t a silly young girl any more, taken in by an experienced flirt’s cold-blooded decision to use her foolish adoration for his own ends. No, she was a fully qualified flight mechanic, a Leading Aircraftwoman First Class; a girl in uniform who had won the respect of her peers and her superiors, and who enjoyed the pride that that respect gave her.