course.’ The acceptance was out of her mouth before Diane could summon the good sense to refuse.
‘Wait until you see them Yanks. You won’t be moping over your chap then, I can tell you, not if you’ve any sense,’ Myra told her enthusiastically as she opened the door.
‘I’m not moping…’ Diane began but it was too late, Myra had gone, clattering down the stairs.
Half an hour later, having thanked Mrs Lawson for her cup of tea and the Spam sandwiches she had made her, Diane dutifully listened whilst her landlady went through her house rules.
‘You’ll be well fed, or as good as I can manage,’ Mrs Lawson assured her. ‘All the chaps round here have allotments and, knowing I’m widowed and that I’m doing me bit having you girls here, they mek sure that I get me fresh veggies and fruit. Mind you, you’ll get some of your meals at the Derby House canteen, as well, so you won’t be going without.’ She gave a small sniff that wasn’t quite a criticism, but Diane took the hint.
‘If there’s anything going spare, I’ll make sure I bring it back with me, Mrs Lawson.’
She was rewarded with an approving smile.
‘You’re a sensible type, I can see that,’ the landlady told her. ‘Now, I’ll give you a key, ’cos I know you’ll be working shifts. I’m off out in a few minutes, once I’ve washed up, as it’s me WVS meeting night.’
‘I’ll give you a hand with the washing-up, shall I?’ Diane offered dutifully, earning herself another approving smile. She realised she would have to adapt so that she could get on well with both Mrs Lawson and Myra Stone if she was going to cope with life at number 24.
TWO
Left to her own devices, Diane decided that she might as well explore her new surroundings rather than stay cooped up in the room she was sharing with Myra.
She changed out of her uniform, taking care to hang it up neatly, before unpinning her hair. The trouble with being a natural blonde was that there were so many unnatural blondes around who had taken the maxim that blondes have more fun so enthusiastically to heart that one was judged automatically as being the same. It was part of the reason why she preferred to wear her hair up instead of down. But only part, Diane admitted. The other part was the fact that Kit had loved to smooth her hair back off her face and run his fingers through it, and now she just couldn’t bear to look in the mirror and see it falling softly down onto her shoulders. It was horrid to love someone so much when they no longer loved you back. Diane had never imagined she would feel like this. She had grown up in a happy loving environment, with parents married nearly thirty years now, and from the moment Kit had proposed to her she had simply accepted that he loved her and that he always would do.
She wasn’t to think about him any more, she reminded herself fiercely. He wasn’t worthy of her tears or her thoughts, and she had had a lucky escape. Better to have found out now what he was really like…
She had said these words to herself so often these last few weeks that they had become a litany that ran ceaselessly through her head. It had been very hard to maintain the pretence of their deciding on a mutual end to their engagement in front of her colleagues, especially those young women who, like her, had RAF boyfriends and with whom she and Kit had often socialised.
Not letting the side down had become not letting herself down, just as keeping a stiff upper lip in the face of the hardships of war had become making sure that she didn’t let others see how she really felt.
It wasn’t unknown for engagements to be broken, and though the ending of hers had been greeted with a few raised eyebrows, the camp was a large one and everyone there knew young women who had lost fiancés and husbands to the war, and who because of that were far more deserving of sympathy than Diane.
Out of Kit’s squadron only just over half of the original young pilots were still flying. One of Kit’s closest pals in the squadron had been shot down and killed, leaving a distraught young widow, so distraught in fact that she had tried to take her own life. Diane shivered, remembering poor little Amy. But it didn’t do to dwell on such things -the war taught everyone that. Amongst those pilots who weren’t flying were the dead, the injured and those who were presumed to be prisoners of war. Diane gave another shiver. She must not think about that now, nor about the nights she had lain awake, wondering if Kit would make it back safely. That life was over now. This was meant to be a fresh start for her here in Liverpool, where no one knew her or her history.
She looked down at her left hand and her bare ring finger. When Kit had broken their engagement she had taken off her ring and handed it back to him. He had shrugged dismissively, telling her that she might as well keep it, plainly unconcerned about either it or her any more. The following weekend, having given in to a friend’s suggestion that she join them at a dance, she had had the heart-stopping experience of seeing Kit dancing with another girl, holding her close as he crooned in her ear. But she couldn’t think about that again. The familiar pain was building up. She must not let it take hold of her. And she would not. Girls like Myra, with her cynical determination to make the most of the opportunities the war offered, had a far better time of it than girls like her, and if she had any sense she would model herself on Myra and have a good time herself. What, after all, had she got to lose now that she had lost Kit? He plainly was enjoying himself without her, and now that she had no heart left to break she would not be in any danger of having hers broken a second time, would she? It was all very well being good and loyal, and loving one man and one alone, but when that man said he didn’t want you any more where did that leave you? Diane took a deep breath. After all, hadn’t she already told herself that from now on things were going to be different and that she herself was going to be different? Sharing with someone like Myra was going to make it easy for her to keep that promise to herself. From now on she was going to go out and dance and laugh, and take all the fun that life was prepared to offer her. She reached up and tugged the pins out of her hair…
Ten minutes later, freshly dressed in ‘mufti’, as those in the forces referred to their non-uniform clothes, she let herself out of the house.
She might as well walk back into the city and find out the best way to reach Derby House, she decided when she had walked as far as Edge Hill Road. It was a light evening with a pleasant breeze, and she set off briskly in the direction she had come earlier.
The bombed buildings looked no less shocking this time than they had done earlier. Instinctively she wanted to look away. People had lived in those houses and worked in those buildings. Where were they now? Rehoused safely somewhere else, or had their lives been destroyed along with their homes, Diane wondered sadly, standing uncertainly at the crossroads she had come to and wondering which way she should take.
‘Summat up, is there, lass?’ a woman with a chirpy Liverpudlian accent asked her.
‘I’m just trying to get my bearings,’ Diane told her. ‘I’ve only just arrived…’
‘Aye, well, with that blonde hair of yours you’d better take care no one mistakes you for a German spy,’ the woman told her forthrightly. ‘I don’t hold wi’ bleaching, I don’t…’
Diane forced herself to smile, rather than correct her.
‘So what is it yer looking for then? If it’s them Yanks, yer won’t have to go far; they’ll find you soon enough. Not that I’d let any daughters of mine tek up wi’ one, not for all the fags and nylons in the world,’ the woman avowed firmly.
‘Actually, I was trying
