The Londoners (22 page)

Laughter and relief surged through her.

‘He’s a Labrador,’ Toby said as they neared the car and the dog stood up, his powerful tail wagging in joyous welcome. ‘He belonged to a chum of mine who was shot down
over Maastricht. I promised Rory that if he bought it I’d look after Hector for him. He’s rather magnificent, isn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ she said, glad that in fussing and petting Hector she was able to disguise the new set of feelings sweeping over her. ‘Bought it’. Was that how Toby and his
friends described a fiery and horrendous death? Was that the way they coped with the ever-present nightmare each and every one of them lived with? By coining a slang and trivializing expression for
it?

‘We’ve become pretty inseparable these last few weeks,’ Toby said as he opened the car door for her. ‘I explained to him that I had an important visitor coming this
weekend and that we wanted some privacy but he refused to take the hint.’

He walked around to the far side of the MG and slid into the driving seat beside her, shooting her a down-slanting, heart-stopping smile, the expression in his eyes making her damp with longing.
‘And I’ve told him that if he expects to be taken for a long walk he can forget it. Once that cottage door closes behind us we’re not emerging again for anyone. Not even him. This
next forty-eight hours are going to be spent in one place and one place only. Bed!’

The cottage stood by itself at the end of a long, winding lane. It was a small, traditional two-up and two-down, set amidst a garden crammed with hollyhocks, delphiniums and
Canterbury bells. Inside, in the wood-beamed living-room, was a shabby leather sofa and winged chair and a large, purposeful-looking desk. On it stood a blue pottery jug filled with flowers. She
didn’t have to ask him if he had picked the flowers himself. She knew he had. And his motivation had been the same as hers when she had shopped for her broderie anglaise trimmed nightdress.
Even though they weren’t yet married he regarded the time they were now spending together as being their honeymoon, and despite all the difficult circumstances, he wanted it to be as romantic
and as perfect as possible.

With her heart banging against her ribs and Hector pushing and shoving at her heels, she followed Toby up the narrow, uneven staircase to the bedrooms.

‘What used to be the small bedroom has mercifully been converted into a bathroom,’ Toby said, leading the way into a sun-filled, lemon and white decorated bedroom. He dropped her
overnight case onto a chintz upholstered button-backed chair. ‘You can also see the airfield from here. If Ops want me they’ll ring. I’m praying to God they
won’t.’

‘Ops?’ she asked, suddenly nervous, playing for time.

‘The Operations Room.’ There was an edge of tautness in his voice which she knew had nothing to do with their personal situation. ‘Disaster is staring France in the face at the
moment. The entire base is on stand-by.’

She hadn’t walked as far into the room as he had and now, as their eyes held, he made no move towards her. Sensing her apprehension, loving her so much it was a physical pain, he said
gently, ‘If you’ve changed your mind, Kate, I’ll understand. I know how low and lonely you must have felt when you wrote to me. I know how ghastly it must be for you living at
home without your father, but I also know how you’ve always felt about sex before marriage and . . .’

‘It is lonely at home,’ she said huskily. ‘And I was low and in need of comfort when I wrote to you. But that isn’t the reason I decided to come down here this
weekend.’

The bed lay between them, its white jacquard bedspread and plump, white, cotton-cased pillows spotlessly bridal.

‘I came because I realized how foolish I’d been in clinging to a romantic notion that has nothing whatsoever to do with the life we’re now living,’ she said, apprehensive
no longer, utterly sure of the commitment she was about to give. ‘The values I was trying to cling to belong to a world that doesn’t exist any longer.’

She thought of Rory, and of Toby facing the same risks, and the very idea of denying herself and Toby the joy and comfort of lovemaking in order that she could walk down the aisle a virgin
seemed no longer only anachronistic, but obscene.

A small smile touched the corners of her mouth. ‘I came down here this weekend because I love you,’ she said, well aware that he had asked her if she was having second thoughts only
because his love for her was completely unselfish; because her happiness, mental as well as emotional, mattered to him far more than his own and that if she had changed her mind he would, out of
love for her, have contained his savage disappointment.

The excitement that had spiralled within her on the train journey from London was now roaring through every vein and nerve in her body. ‘And because I want us to be lovers,’ she said
simply.

She saw relief swamp his eyes and then they darkened with passion and he closed the distance between them in swift strides. As he took her in his arms she upturned her face radiantly to his,
adding softly with a wantonness she had never known she possessed, ‘And I want to go to bed with you.’

Later, with the curtains drawn and the room bathed in muted, golden light, they lay naked on the rumpled sheets, their arms wrapped closely around each other.

Kate’s nightdress, pristine and unworn, lay draped over the back of the chintz upholstered chair and Toby said in loving amusement, ‘I hope you didn’t waste precious clothing
coupons on that piece of decorative nonsense.’

She moved slightly, pushing herself up on one elbow, the hair he had unbraided cascading heavily and silkily down her back, way past her waist. ‘I used up every clothing coupon I possess
to buy it, but none of them were wasted.’ Her fingers moved slowly across his chest and down towards his stomach. ‘It’s symbolic,’ she said, her voice thickening, ‘and
I shall treasure it life-long.’

As her fingers moved lower desire flared in him again. ‘God, but I love you,’ he whispered, pulling her once more down beside him, covering her body with his.

Her legs parted willingly, her arms encircling him. ‘Always?’ she asked, her lips close against the muscular smoothness of his flesh, knowing the answer but wanting to hear it yet
again.

The breath caught in his throat as he re-entered the soft pillar of her flesh. ‘Always,’ he panted hoarsely, penetrating her deeper and deeper until she cried out beneath him, almost
senseless with pleasure. ‘Always and for ever!’

The telephone call came at dawn the next morning. He leapt from the bed to answer it almost before she was aware of what it was that had woken them. Praying it would prove to
be a wrong number she pushed herself up against the pillows.

The telephone conversation was brief, but not brief enough to be a wrong number. ‘Yes,’ she heard Toby say abruptly. ‘Right away, sir. Ten minutes at the most.’

As she heard him replace the receiver and then begin to take the stairs towards the bedroom two at a time, she swung her legs from the bed, reaching for her underslip.

‘It was Ops, wasn’t it?’ she asked unnecessarily.

He nodded, already scrambling into his uniform. ‘I haven’t time to drop you off in Hornchurch. Phone for a taxi. The number is on the desk.’

‘And Hector?’ she asked, as Hector bounded into the room, certain he was about to be taken for an early morning walk. ‘What about Hector?’

‘I’ll take him with me back to base.’

He grabbed his jacket and his cap. ‘Sorry about this, sweetheart. What a bloody way to have to part! I’ll drop you a postcard the minute this show is over.’

She didn’t have time to ask him what the ‘show’ was. One minute he was in the room with her, kissing her a fierce goodbye, the next he was gone.

She ran to the window, yanking back the curtains. By the time she had pushed the window open he had vaulted into the MG and was revving the engine into life.

‘I love you!’
she called out as Hector leapt into the passenger-seat.

With a squeal of tyres the MG swerved away from the front of the cottage and rocked into the lane.

‘Goodbye!’
she shouted, a sob in her throat.
‘Goodbye and good luck!’

The sports car sped down the lane, an incongruous slash of scarlet in the still, green landscape. She stayed at the window not knowing whether he had heard her or not, and she was still at the
window when the first of the Hurricanes and Spitfires careered down the airfield and then took flight, winging their way towards France.

The news-stands she passed on her journey back to London left her in little doubt of the seriousness of the situation. ‘BELGIUM AND HOLLAND SURRENDER TO NAZIS!’ was
the first headline to greet her as she entered Hornchurch station. At Liverpool Street the news headlines were, if possible, even more dire. ‘BOULOGNE CAPTURED’ ‘CALAIS
SURROUNDED’ ‘BRITISH TROOPS ENCIRCLED ON FRENCH COAST’.

She bought every newspaper possible, reading as she travelled on the underground from Liverpool Street Station to Charing Cross Station, reading all the way home on the train from Charing Cross
to Blackheath.

‘The bloody army’s collapsed,’ a woman she had never set eyes on before said to her as she got out of the train at Blackheath. ‘The God-damned Germans are driving us into
the sea!’

As she walked across the Heath she met up with a very morose-looking Charlie. ‘I suppose you’ve heard the news,’ he said without preamble. ‘The British
Expeditionary Force is being evacuated from France. ’Ettie and Daniel are in a terrible state worryin’ about young Danny. They’re down at the Jennings’ now, waitin’
for news on the wireless. If you’re goin’ down there, tell ’em to keep cheerful.’

‘I will,’ Kate lied, unable to face the task of explaining to Charlie that as she was unwelcome at the Jennings’ home she wouldn’t be able to pass his message on for
him.

Once home she switched on her own wireless, fiercely anxious to know what part the RAF were playing in the evacuation. The news was all about shipping. Hundreds upon hundreds of privately owned
vessels, anything of thirty feet and upwards, were congregating at Ramsgate in order to form part of an evacuation fleet.

When she returned to work on Monday morning Mr Muff’s conversation was about nothing else. ‘Dunkirk!’ he said to her before she had even taken her jacket off.
‘It’s the greatest evacuation the world has ever seen! Hitler thought he’d got us cornered but he’s misjudged us yet again! The RAF will be giving the
Luftwaffe
a
terrible pasting. If I had a Union Jack in the office I’d hang it from the window! This evacuation isn’t a defeat. It’s a triumph!’

Miss Pierce, too, thought the ongoing evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force a victory. ‘The latest news is that troops are already being landed at south coast
ports and being put aboard trains for barracks or home,’ she said as they sat together at lunchtime. ‘It’s all a terrible setback, of course, but however terrible the death toll,
it isn’t total annihilation. The small ships have seen to that. Did you know that even the Thames pleasure cruisers have gone to the aid of the troops?’

The first detailed newspaper account of the evacuation was published on 4 June under the heading ‘Operation Dynamo, the great evacuation of Dunkirk, is
complete.’

Kate read the report as she ate her breakfast, her relief that RAF planes would in all probability no longer be engaging the
Luftwaffe
in battle above the French beaches vast. It was a
relief that was compounded when Carrie burst into the house, her face radiant.

‘Danny’s telephoned Mr Giles!’ she said as Kate put down her mug of tea and rose from the table to greet her. ‘He was lifted off Dunkirk yesterday by a fishing trawler
and he’s now back at his barracks! Isn’t it wonderful news? Isn’t it absolutely bloody fantastic?’

‘There’s some bad news afoot,’ Mr Muff said to her unhappily when she elatedly entered the office half an hour later. ‘We’ve all been asked to
assemble in the canteen where an announcement is to be made. I rather suspect it means Mr Harvey has passed away. I always did suspect his heart attack was far more serious than we were led to
believe.’

Kate stared at him aghast. If his assumption was correct it meant that by suggesting to Toby that they spend his last leave together at Hornchurch, she had unwittingly denied him his last
opportunity to see his grandfather.

‘It doesn’t look very good,’ Miss Pierce said to her gravely as they walked down the corridor together towards the canteen. ‘It certainly can’t be any news to do
with the war. If Hitler had invaded we’d hardly be asked to assemble in the canteen in order to be appraised of the fact! I rather think Mr Harvey must have suffered another, and this time
fatal, heart attack.’

As they entered the canteen the buzz of speculative conversation from members of staff already assembled concurred with her assessment of the situation.

‘It certainly isn’t news of a pay rise,’ Kate heard someone say dryly.

‘Perhaps we’re to be turned into a munitions factory,’ someone else said doubtfully.

There were calls for silence and Mr Tutley of Planning and Design took up an authoritative stance facing his co-employees and cleared his throat. ‘I have a very unwelcome task to
perform,’ he said, and Kate saw that he was wearing a black armband.

Cold ice slithered down her spine. Toby had been wrong in thinking his grandfather on the way to full recovery from his heart attack. Mr Harvey was dead and she was responsible for the fact that
Toby had not visited him on his last, all too short, leave.

‘Though he was only among us for a short time at Harvey Construction Ltd, everyone who came into contact with him will remember him . . .’

The blood began to drum in Kate’s ears. What was Mr Tutley saying? Mr Harvey
was
Harvey Construction Ltd.

‘A young man . . . cut down in his prime . . . fighting valorously against the powers of darkness above the beaches of Dunkirk . . .’

Kate felt herself sway. It wasn’t Toby’s grandfather who had died. It was Toby. He was never going to come back to her. She was never going to see him again.