was looking at his watch, again. ‘Sorry, Jenny. You’ll be all right?’
‘I’ll be fine. Just fine.’
She wasn’t fine. She was angry they had wasted the precious minutes on stupid small talk. Then she took off his tunic and gave it back, helping him into it, fastening the buttons possessively. ‘Take care, Rob. Promise to be careful.’
‘I will.’
‘And promise never to stop loving me.’
‘Never. I promise.’
The same dear words, each time they parted. The same sweet promises, part of the ritual of their loving.
‘Goodnight, Rob MacDonald,’ she whispered, and he reached for her and kissed her gently, the sadness in his eyes making her suddenly afraid.
‘Goodnight, Jenny.’
He went abruptly and she stood there, eyes on his back, willing him to turn, knowing he would not.
She watched as he broke into a run along the perimeter track; the same track his bomber would lumber round tonight if standby became reality.
Despair shook her, her body screaming silently at the pain of leaving him, choosing not to think of the risk he had taken to be with her.
Damn this war, she thought. Damn it, damn it!
She turned then, tugging at the wire-mesh fence, squeezing through. Head down, she ran through the wood, past the beech tree and the stile, not stopping until she came to Dormer Cottage.
‘Hi!’ she called to no one in particular. ‘I’m home.’
She took the stairs at a run, up and up to the attic she slept in. Breathlessly she flung herself down on the window seat.
She liked this large, low room at the top of the house. From its windows she could see for miles, across fields and trees to the aerodrome beyond. From here she could watch and wait for take-off, count the bombers out, bless them on their way.
There was nothing to see, yet. Toy trucks moved between hangars; a minute tractor drove slowly down the main runway. Maybe they wouldn’t go tonight. Maybe it would be all right.
She pulled her knees up to her chin, hugging them for comfort, thinking about Saturday and York, and Julia, who had reluctantly agreed to alibi her.
She closed her eyes. On Saturday night she would be Jenny MacDonald. No one else called her Jenny. She was Jane, except to Rob; and now no one else would ever be allowed to use that diminutive. Jenny and Rob. Mrs Robert MacDonald, of Glasgow, though where in Glasgow she wasn’t at all sure. What she did know was that he lived with his mother and two brothers, and that after the war he would go back to work in an insurance office.
Frowning, she made a mental note to ask his address, though where a man lived was not important. What really mattered was that he loved you and that tomorrow he would be waiting by the beech tree, at seven. Everything else was a triviality.
She rested her chin on her knees, preparing herself for the long wait. Her parents were down there in the garden, Missy, her labrador bitch, at their heels.
She was sorry about the tension between them. It had started when they discovered she was meeting Rob, and they had asked for her promise that she would never see him again. It was the start of the lies and deceit, but she didn’t care. Only Rob mattered now.
She closed her eyes, easing into her favourite fantasy. She did it all the time when Rob was not with her, recalling words they had spoken, hearing music and shared laughter.
Tonight the air was gentle and the earth green with tender things growing, but when first she met Rob a bitter wind blew from the north-east and the bombers were grounded, standing shrouded against the frost and snow like great wounded birds. Candlemas, and there was a dance in the sergeants’ mess. Often, now, she thought with wonder that she almost hadn’t gone …
Her mother was against it. Aerodromes were dangerous places, she fretted, the recent air raid and the death of two young Waafs still fresh in her mind. Her parents didn’t want her to become involved with Fenton Bishop’s aircrews. They were a wild lot, her mother said. They had rowdy parties at the Black Bull and sang dubious songs. She only gave in when she learned that the vicar’s niece would be going to the dance and that the Air Force would be providing transport.
Jane had never been to the aerodrome before – not actually past the guardroom and through the gates – and she hadn’t known what to expect that night. All she was able to see from the back of the truck was the rounded outlines of scattered Nissen huts and, on the dark horizon, tall, wedge-shaped buildings hung with dim blue lights.
A corporal wearing an SP’s armband helped her down, and from the distance she sensed the clunk and slap of a double bass and drums that tapped out a rumba beat.
On either side, white-painted kerb stones glowed faintly through the blackness as she walked with the rest towards the sound of the dancing, for ears were of more use than eyes in the blackout.
The aircrew mess was a drab building, erected in the haste of war, with a brown polished floor and girders that criss-crossed to support a low tin roof. Thick blackout curtains covered the too-small windows and cigarette smoke hung in a blue haze, drifting lazily, trapped in the roof space above.
The room was noisy and hot. She laid her coat across a table then stood, not knowing what to do, wondering irritably why she had made such a fuss about coming …
But thank heaven she had, she thought now. Oh, Rob, imagine. We might never have met.
Her foot began to tingle and she shifted her position. Her father was still in the garden. He was wearing his blue police shirt and the strap of his truncheon hung from his left trouser pocket. The war had brought extra responsibilities to the village constable and now they were beginning to show in the tired lines on his face.
She wished her father and mother were like other parents and not so narrow-minded. But they were old. Her mother must be nearly sixty.
‘We waited so long for you, Jane. We had given up hope, then suddenly there you were, a little stranger …’
A little stranger. God, how awful. And how awful to imagine people of their age doing that. It made her glad she was disobeying them; gladder still that she and Rob were lovers.
All seemed normal and quiet at the aerodrome and the sun was beginning to set. She lifted her left hand. Almost nine o’clock.
‘… if something doesn’t happen by nine …’
The cough and splutter of an aircraft engine came to her clearly on the still evening air. Fear sliced through her and she tried to close her ears to the sound, but as if to mock her it was joined by another and another until the air was filled with a shaking roar. The pilots were revving up the aircraft engines; there would be no stand-down. Soon, Rob would take S-Sugar on to the runway and wait for clearance from the control tower. Then a green light would stab through the gloom and he’d be roaring down the narrow concrete strip, faster and faster, holding Sugar back until it seemed the boundary fence was hurtling to meet them. Then slowly, reluctantly almost, they would rise into the air and Rob would let go his breath, and his flight engineer would say, ‘Bloody lovely,’
