The Penny Bangle (33 page)

‘Steve,’ said Cassie gently, ‘we don’t all get the chance to be heroic. We – ’

‘I’m nearly twenty-five, and so far I’ve done nothing with my life. When the war is over, and people talk about it, what they did and where they did it, and I have to tell them I had a cushy job behind a desk, everyone will think I was a shirker and a coward. Somebody who fixed it so he didn’t have to fight.’

‘No, they won’t!’ cried Cassie.

‘Of course they will.’ Stephen stubbed his cigarette out. ‘God, I need a drink,’ he muttered. ‘When we get to Paddington, will you come and have a beer with me?’

‘Yes, okay,’ said Cassie, thinking, just one beer won’t hurt him, and I’d like one, too.

She stared out of the window, wondering how close they were to London. In the all-enveloping blackout, it was very difficult to tell. The long, slow minutes ticked on by.

‘Have you seen Frances recently?’ asked Stephen, breaking his moody silence.

‘Not since she came to London, to tell me about Rob.’ Cassie shrugged, then yawned behind her hand. I really ought to go to bed, she thought. I must be up by five tomorrow morning. I have to drive to York. ‘But we write, of course.’

‘How’s she getting on with whatsisname?’

‘I think they’re hoping to get married, that’s if he can get divorced.’

‘But he’s far too old for her, you know – and he’s a cripple, too.’ Stephen lit another cigarette. ‘I should have nabbed her, when I had the chance. I might drop her a line.’

‘Steve, she’s very happy with her Simon.’ Cassie thought, don’t interfere, don’t start making up to Frances, don’t encourage her to think you love her after all, get her to break off her affair with Simon, change your mind again, and break her heart.

‘Simon,’ Stephen said sarcastically, and then he pulled a face. ‘I think our Frances could do better than a geriatric cripple, Cass – don’t you?’

‘Leave Fran alone, Steve. Promise me?’ Cassie looked at Stephen earnestly. ‘What about your girl from Shropshire, how’s that working out?’

‘She keeps nagging on at me to go to bloody Ludlow to meet her bloody parents.’ Stephen scowled. ‘Daddy’s master of the local hunt and lives for field sports, which I hate – they’re pointless and they’re boring and they’re cruel – while Mummy does the flowers in church, and good works on the side. I don’t think they’ll be my sort of people.’

‘Steve, you never know.’

The train was late, and everything was in total darkness by the time they finally shunted into Paddington. Stephen said to Cassie he’d walk her home to Chelsea, and they could have a drink along the way. He knew a decent pub in Fulham Road.

‘It’s a long way,’ Cassie told him, ‘for you to come to Chelsea, and then walk back to Berkeley Street.’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Stephen, as he picked up Cassie’s kitbag. ‘I don’t have anything else to do.’

As they started stumbling through the blackout, he took Cassie’s hand. Occasional flurries of sleet were making all the pavements slippery, so she was glad of someone to hold on to in the darkness.

She had enjoyed the past few days in Stephen’s company. They’d gone for walks across the winter fields, they’d helped the land girls on the farm, they’d sat together in the snug old pub in Charton, and they’d walked back down the lanes to Melbury in moonlight under dark blue velvet skies. She’d thought, if I had had a brother, I’d have wanted him to be like Steve.

But maybe he would be her brother yet?

Stephen’s hand felt comfortable in hers – it was strong and warm, and also solid and reassuring. Perhaps, she thought, if Robert doesn’t come back, if Stephen wants to see me?

I do like him, very much. But could I love him, too? Maybe one day I could. He and Rob, they’re almost the same person. They look so very similar, and they sound the same.

Stephen’s good, he’s kind, he’s very thoughtful, and I know he likes me. More than likes me. I could probably help him whenever he gets moody, when he’s missing Robert and he’s sad. So perhaps, after the war is over –

She gave his hand a friendly squeeze, and when a taxi passed them in the darkness, its headlights yellow slits, she could see a smile on his face. ‘All right, Cass?’ he asked.

‘Yes, fine,’ she said. ‘But how are you?’

‘Oh, I’m okay,’ said Stephen, and he shrugged. ‘I’m sorry I was going on just now. I get like that sometimes.’

‘I think we all do, don’t we?’ Cassie smiled herself, relieved to hear him sounding like his normal self again.

‘I’m looking forward to that beer,’ he added.

‘So am I.’

The quiet of the night was suddenly shattered by a huge explosion, the roar of engines and a sonic boom that echoed round the empty, silent streets.

‘That’s a V2,’ said Cassie fearfully. ‘It must have come down somewhere very close.’

‘Yes.’ Stephen grasped her hand more tightly. ‘Come on, let’s go and see.’

‘See what?’ asked Cassie.

‘What’s going on, of course.’

‘Stephen, I don’t want – ’

But her hand was firmly clasped in Stephen’s, and he began to pull her through the streets.

The rocket had hit a house at the south end of Sussex Place, and it was on fire. But the firemen must have come along within a couple of minutes of the explosion, and several ARP men were also on the scene.

‘Stand back, sir,’ said a fireman, as Stephen dragged Cassie across the road towards the blazing house, then stood there, mesmerised.

Cassie looked at Stephen anxiously. She saw his eyes were glazed, that he looked feverish and excited, and that his lips were white. She thought he might be going to have a fit.

She remembered what he’d said the first day she had met him, how his eyes had sparkled when he’d described his own house burning down.

She shuddered, and she held his hand more tightly, as if restraining him.

‘Do you know if anyone’s inside?’ she asked the fireman.

‘We think so,’ he replied. ‘Or, at any rate, there are people living in the attics, and we don’t know what’s become of them. But we’re dealing with it. Please, sir – can you move? You’re in the way.’ The fireman put one hand on Stephen’s sleeve, to push him back.

But, as he did so, Stephen pulled his hand from Cassie’s grasp and ducked under the fireman’s arm. She didn’t realise what was happening until she saw him running towards the burning house.

‘Steve!’ she shouted, horrified.

She would have followed him. She would have dragged him back by bodily force. But two ARP men held her arms, and hacking at their shins had no effect.

‘Steve, come back!’ she shrieked, and fought the ARP men, but to no avail.

She wasn’t entirely sure what happened next, could never afterwards sort out the whole sequence of events in her own mind. As she gazed in terror, Stephen disappeared inside the house.

Cassie shrieked again, willing him to hear her voice and turn round, come back out.

Then, as the firemen’s hoses sprayed the building, the water making rainbows against the orange flames, one wall of the stricken house swayed gently. Then it sort of crumpled, and then came crashing down. Cassie stared and stared, unable to do anything but gaze in terror at the wicked flames.

‘Go and see to that one,’ she heard a man’s voice say, and then a WVS woman turned up out of nowhere, and she wrapped Cassie in a heavy blanket.

‘It’s all right, my duck,’ she soothed. ‘You’ve had a nasty shock. I know it isn’t very nice, when you’re on your way back home, and you turn a corner, and there’s a house on fire. But don’t you worry, the men are dealing with it, and everyone’s all right.’

‘Everyone?’ said Cassie, hope leaping in her heart.

‘Well,’ said the woman, ‘the firemen got the family out. But some ARP men were telling us a couple of minutes ago that they saw some lunatic go running into the house. They saw him go right up the stairs, they told us, making for the attics. They don’t know where he came from, or what he was trying to do. They haven’t found him yet.’

‘He isn’t mad, he’s epileptic!’ Cassie wailed.

‘Why, do you know him?’

‘Yes, he’s my – he’s my – ’

But what could she say, that Stephen was her brother, lover, friend? All those, yet maybe none of them – how could she know? She settled for he’s my friend.

‘Try not to worry, love,’ the WVS woman said. ‘They’ll get him out, you’ll see. But, in the meantime, we ought to get you home.’

The woman led Cassie to a small green van parked a little way along the street, where other WVS women were making tea and sandwiches for the firemen. ‘Do you live round here?’ the woman asked, as Cassie shook and trembled, and as she tried in vain to hold a mug of scalding tea, which slopped all down her coat.

‘N-no,’ she stammered. ‘But a f-friend of mine lives in Park Lane.’ Cassie gave the woman Daisy’s number, and then she sat down on the kerb and closed her eyes.

But she could still see wicked, dancing flames, see the black shape of Stephen running into them, as if he were running into a loved one’s arms. She knew she’d always see them, even if she lived to be a hundred.

Daisy came for Cassie in a taxi and took her to the apartment in Park Lane.

‘Sit down, Cass,’ she said, as they both stumbled – shell-shocked, frightened, disbelieving – into Daisy’s sitting room. ‘I’ll go and make us something hot. Then, when you’re ready, you can explain what happened.’

‘We were walking back from Paddington,’ said Cassie wretchedly. ‘We’d been to see your mum for a few days. We’d had a lovely time.’ She sipped the coffee which Daisy had laced liberally with brandy. ‘Steve was in a funny mood – he was up one moment, down the next. I said I’d go and have a beer with him. I thought I might be able to cheer him up a bit.’

‘What happened next?’

‘We were just chatting about anything and nothing. I thought he sounded almost back to normal. We heard this big explosion. Then suddenly he was pulling me along. He said we had to go and see the fire.’

‘But why would he want to see a fire?’ demanded Daisy, frowning. ‘He’s been here in London since 1942, and he must have seen a thousand fires. Why go and look at this one?’

‘I think he found fires interesting, exciting.’ Cassie didn’t want to talk to Daisy about what Stephen said when they’d first met, about how it would feel to walk in fire. It would have made him sound insane, as if he should have been locked up. ‘But anyway, we got there, and this house was burning, and a fireman tried to push us back, but Steve ducked underneath his arm.’

‘Then what?’

‘He ran into the house.’

‘But
why
?’ demanded Daisy as Cassie started sobbing. ‘I don’t blame you, love,’ she said quickly, as she came to sit down next to Cassie, as she put her arm around her shoulders and as she held her tight. ‘Please, Cassie darling, don’t break your heart like this! But I need to ask you why – ’

‘Daisy, I don’t know!’ insisted Cassie.

But she did. She knew exactly why. It had been preying on his mind, the fact that he was not a hero. Steve had been determined that he would be a hero, or die in the attempt.

She blamed herself. She had asked that fireman if there was anyone inside the house, and Steve had heard the man reply. ‘Do you know if anyone’s inside?’ she’d asked. Six little words, and they’d condemned him, had sentenced him to death.

She wept and wept for him, more than she’d wept for Robert. She thought the tears would never, ever stop. Steve, she thought, you idiot, you fool! What are we going to tell your mother?

It was such a pointless waste of life.

Robert and Sofia were a team.

Marcello and the others understood it, and let them plan and organise some missions of their own. Marcello was always very pleased to see them coming home with anything they’d stolen from the Germans – guns and hand grenades, supplies they’d filched from German general stores, and on one occasion a whole crate of schnapps.

Robert made sure he and Sofia got their share of schnapps, decanting it into their water bottles and taking it along with him when he and Sofia went off on private raids.

One day, after a raid on a supply store, they lost their way coming back home and were benighted on the mountain. Freezing cold and hungry, they could not see anything to guide them on an overcast and starless night.