The September Girls (33 page)

Just now, Malta was a place of peace and tranquillity, although there were frequent practice air raids when the siren would go and everyone had to rush to shelters underground. But it wouldn’t always stay that way. The small island provided a crucial supply base between Europe and North Africa where troops from both sides were massing in preparation for battle. Hitler wouldn’t just sit back and let the Allies hold on to such a vitally important position, not without a fight.

Any road, it seemed the natural thing to do, to promise herself to Kit, stay faithful to him until the war was over - the general opinion seemed to be this would happen within a year - then get married and settle down somewhere between Liverpool and Lancaster so they could easily visit their families - Kit had a brother and two sisters as well as a mum and dad - and have children. She’d like four: two girls and two boys. She drew in a deep, sharp breath, so blissfully happy that she could hardly think clearly any more. Now she knew what the strange feeling was that she’d had in her breast: it was happiness mixed with love for Kit and she took it for granted the feeling would never go away.

 

Sybil saw them together one night in a café in Rabat. They were with Fielding and another Air Force chap: slim and boyish, exceptionally handsome. The pair seemed to be getting on well, laughing heartily over something. But the other two, Cara and her companion, had eyes only for each other, talking quietly, smiling occasionally and holding hands across the table. Every now and then, the man would lift Cara’s hand to his lips and kiss it, and the look he would give her - and she him! It was obvious they were madly in love. The man wasn’t even faintly handsome, but there was something about him, about his face - at first, Sybil couldn’t figure out what it was - something decent and good, she decided, and terribly romantic. She reckoned he would make a marvellous lover. Had he and Cara made love yet? she wondered.

‘I say, this crab is delicious,’ Alec Townend remarked. ‘What do you think, darling?’

‘Delicious,’ Sybil murmured. Lately, he’d begun to get on her nerves. He was so
dull
. She couldn’t recall him once saying anything remotely interesting. She’d give him up and start going out with someone else - that other lieutenant, John Glover, who’d invited her to dinner the other day. Sybil pushed the crab away and twisted restlessly in her chair, wishing she’d been sent somewhere more exciting. Like Alec, Malta was very dull. Nothing happened. She glanced across the crowded restaurant, full of servicemen and women. There was a space in the middle for people to dance and a few had got up and were dancing to the little local band playing ‘I’m in the Mood for Love’. It had been in that film she’d seen with Alec the first time they’d gone out together. Tonight, it sounded very amateurish, as if the band weren’t used to playing that sort of music. Cara and her chap were up, she noticed, and they moved slowly around the floor, wrapped so tightly in each other’s arms they could have been one person.

For some reason, Sybil felt tears come to her eyes.
That
was what she wanted, for someone to love her, not in the possessive, suffocating way that Daddy did, or in the indifferent way of the mother who’d deserted her and only really cared for Jonathan, but the way the young airman loved Cara.

 

Once a month, Cara was allowed a weekend off duty. She and Fielding usually managed to swap weekends with other girls so they would have the time off together. So far, all they’d done with their free days was treat themselves to a few extra hours in bed, laze around the farmhouse - last time, they’d cut each other’s hair, as it was a nuisance having to put it in buns and plaits so it didn’t touch their collars - go to the pictures in Rabat and explore the many street markets, or hitch a ride to Valletta and do the same things there.

In May, when she told Kit about the forthcoming weekend, he said, ‘If I try and wangle the same time off, shall we go to Gozo for a few days? It only takes half an hour on the ferry.’ Gozo was a small island off the northern tip of Malta.

‘I’d love to, but will Mac be able to come for Fielding? I can’t leave her behind all on her own.’ Peter McShane was Kit’s best mate and known as Mac: small and strikingly handsome, he came from Newcastle and was happily married with two children. A shop assistant in his old life, he’d become friendly with Kit through their shared love of books. They often went out in a foursome and his relationship with Fielding was entirely platonic, but they had the same wicked sense of humour, laughing at things that normal people wouldn’t have considered remotely funny.

Kit kissed her nose. ‘If it means you won’t come without Fielding, then I shall fetch Mac, even if he has to be bound and gagged first.’

 

There’d been no need for Mac to be bound and gagged. When the men arrived early on Saturday morning on the old rattling bikes they’d managed to acquire from somewhere, Mac looked as keyed up as Kit about the weekend ahead. All four wore civvies for the first time: the men in grey flannels, Aertex shirts and sports jackets, and Cara in her red frock and a white cardigan. Fielding wore a drawstring blouse and dirndl skirt in which she managed to look even smaller.

They waited at the side of the road for the bus to Gozo. On such a perfect May morning, the warm air sparkling like champagne and filled with the scent of the blossom that carpeted the surrounding fields, it was hard to believe there was a war on, that only the other day Winston Churchill had replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister of Great Britain, that yesterday Germany had invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, that vicious battles were raging throughout Europe.

The bus came, a miniature single-decker packed with elderly women clad in long, black garments. They must have got up at the crack of dawn as they were laden with baskets of fruit and vegetables from the markets of Rabat. Cara and Fielding took the last empty seats and Kit and Mac had to stand.

A small shrine was attached to the screen behind the driver, a painting of Jesus encased in a heart-shaped frame with a little scooped ledge underneath containing holy water. As the bus stopped frequently to let people on and off, usually more elderly women, passengers would dip the fingers in the water and make the sign of the Cross. It looked very ostentatious, Cara thought. She’d sooner keep her religion to herself, not flaunt it.

A priest boarded the bus, hardly out of his teens, and a woman at the front, who looked about ninety, struggled to her feet and gave him her seat. He took it with a curt nod. Snorting loudly, Fielding stood and indicated to the woman to have her seat. She looked nervously at the priest before taking it.

It was much too hot on the crowded, noisy bus. Mac was smoking - he smoked a lot - and the atmosphere was fuggy: it was hard to breathe. Cara began to feel sleepy as they trundled along the narrow, otherwise deserted roads, passing tiny villages, each with its own enormous church. Kit was holding on to the back of her seat and she could feel his knuckles against her neck. She hadn’t told Mam or Dad about him, yet they were virtually engaged: Mam would only demand to know if he was a Catholic and Dad would ask about his politics. As Kit was an atheist and had no time for politicians of any party, they would both be unhappy with her choice of husband and she had no intention of getting involved in heated arguments by letter as to why she should or shouldn’t marry him.

He bent and said, ‘We’re nearly there,’ and she felt his lips against her hair. His fingers caressed her neck and she looked up at him and smiled. ‘I love you,’ he mouthed.

‘And I love you.’ She said it so quietly, she wasn’t sure if he’d heard. But they both knew how much they loved each other, yet kept on saying it. She wondered if she would sleep with Kit on Gozo. They hadn’t discussed it, but she had a feeling it would happen and her veins tingled with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. They could only spend one night away as they had to be on duty early on Monday morning, but it could be a turning point in her life, the time when she ceased to be a girl and became a woman.

The bus stopped at Cirkewwa from where the ferries ran to Gozo, the remainder of the passengers got off, their places immediately taken by those disembarking from the ferry that had just docked. Mac bought four beers to soothe their dry throats - it didn’t matter that the beer was warm - and they proceeded on to the ship, gratefully breathing in the crisp fresh air, enjoying the gentle motion of the boat as it took them on the thirty-minute journey to Gozo. The blue water was as clear as a diamond, reminding Cara of the ring that Louise Appleton had sent, and fish of every size and colour could be seen swimming aimlessly in its depths. One came shooting up towards her and she stepped back in alarm, but it was only a mirror image of a gull diving towards the water, hitting it with a muffled splash and a spurt of creamy foam.

Fielding said she felt as if she’d escaped from prison and didn’t care that she would be recaptured the day after tomorrow. ‘Until that happens, I’m going to have the time of my life. There’s a war on, and who knows when we’ll be able to do this again?’

Mac said, ‘Hear, hear,’ but Cara and Kit just looked at each other and didn’t say anything.

 

Victoria, Gozo’s capital, was a hilltop citadel, its 400-year-old walls standing like a giant candle in the centre of the island. In one of the confusing maze of narrow streets was a cheap hotel that Mac had been recommended. It took a while to find, even with the aid of a map. A flat-fronted house within a row of similar buildings, it was situated in a curved alleyway of shallow steps. The owner, a smiling, bejewelled woman in a long, flowered dress, spoke English well and could even understand Mac with his slight Geordie accent. Most Maltese had at least a smattering of the language, the island having been a British colony for more than a hundred years.

Mac reserved two double rooms for the night. Cara wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or disappointed that it seemed Kit had no intention of sleeping with her. She came to the conclusion she was a little bit of both.

‘I’d like to have a wash and change my shirt,’ Mac announced when the terms had been negotiated.

A few minutes later, the men having disappeared, Cara and Fielding entered their ground-floor room. The roughly plastered walls were painted white and the floor paved with caramel-coloured stones. There was a gaudy rug on each site of the double bed that was covered with an extravagantly lacy white spread. The curtains on the tiny windows were also white, and a black crucifix with a brass figure of Christ hung on the wall.

‘It’s nice and cool in here.’ Fielding threw herself on the bed. ‘It’s a bit like a nun’s cell. Is that what nuns sleep in, Caffrey, a cell?’

‘I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure they don’t go in for lace bedspreads.’

They spent the afternoon lazily exploring the rambling streets of Gozo with its crumbling medieval buildings, museums and craft shops, stopping frequently to escape the blazing sun for an invigorating cup of coffee or a glass of highly alcoholic Maltese wine. There were a surprising number of people about, many from the military like themselves. Now that Cara knew that she would end the weekend as she’d started it, a virgin, the tension she’d felt before, thrilling though it had been, ebbed away and she felt more at ease.

At six, the girls returned to the hotel for a rest and to get changed. Kit and Mac remained in a bar and promised to collect them in an hour’s time.

‘Don’t you dare get squiffy,’ Fielding said threateningly.

‘As if we would,’ Mac said in a hurt voice.

As soon as they reached their room, Cara took off her dress and lay down on the bed, exhausted. She noticed a silvery gauze dress hanging outside the wardrobe. Sleeveless, with a self-coloured petticoat underneath, it had been exquisitely embroidered with silver thread around the neck and hem. She’d never seen Fielding in it before.

‘That’s pretty,’ she remarked, ‘the dress, I mean.’ Her own imitation silk two-piece fromC & A would look very drab beside it.

‘I wore it in a play and they let me have it afterwards.’ Fielding was washing herself from head to toe with a flannel. Her tiny body was perfectly formed, her breasts like small pink roses and her recently shorn blonde hair a mass of miniature ringlets. Cara was about to say, ‘You remind me of a doll I used to have,’ but thought she might take offence. Instead, she asked, ‘What made you join the Army, Fielding?’ She’d asked before, but had never received a satisfactory answer as to why a relatively successful actress who could also sing and dance had given up her career for the forces.

‘Just felt like it, that’s all.’ She pulled on white knickers and a bra, fastening the bra at the front, then twisting it round, the way Cara did.

‘I don’t believe you. You’re losing valuable time building up your career.’

‘Why did
you
join the Army, Caffrey?’

‘You know quite well why. I had this dead-end job and wanted some excitement, but being on the stage must be exciting enough for anyone. Why are you keeping secrets from me when I tell you everything?’ she asked accusingly.

‘Oh, all right,’ Fielding shrugged nonchalantly, ‘if you must have an answer: I was jilted at the altar by the love of my life. Will that do?’

Cara shook her head. ‘Not if it’s not the truth, no.’

‘My entire family were killed in a road accident and I just had to get away from everything I knew. Does that suit you, Inspector Caffrey?’

‘You mentioned your father only the other week.’

‘I’ve got a deadly disease and am likely to die any minute?’

‘It’d been discovered when you had a medical.’

Fielding stared at her exasperatedly, then her face changed and she began to cry, hard, wracking sobs that made her whole body shudder. She didn’t cover her face, just stood, arms hanging at her sides, her face twisted with grief. ‘My baby died,’ she sobbed. ‘He died in my womb and they had to take the womb away so I can never have more children. The man, the father, did a bunk. I joined the Army because I wanted to die. My baby’s
dead
, Cara, and I don’t want to live any more.’