The Chilbury Ladies' Choir(102)
I have yet to tell my landlady, Mrs. Tilling. I’m sure she’ll be upset to have to find a new person for her room, although with Litchfield Park bombed and Kent on the front line, she may find herself spared the effort. I know she’ll miss having the company, though, and I rather worry about how I’m going to break it to her. We’ve become quite good friends, what with our makeshift dinners in the kitchen and our air raids together in the cellar. I must confess I’ll miss our little chats.
Nevertheless, the war carries on, and we must step to. I’ll write again once I have a new address for you. Send my love to the girls.
Much love,
Anthony
Wednesday, 21st August, 1940
The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir will perform again! We are to sing in a concert in Litchfield this coming Saturday. A lot of the ladies were very upset that the choir competition was canceled, and now we have our very own stage. What a marvelous idea it was of Kitty’s.
The rehearsal went quite well, although I am hoping that certain members put in some extra practice. Our plan is to begin at seven. We will perform for an hour by ourselves and then do songs that everyone knows and can sing along to, like “My Old Man Said Follow the Van,” and “Roll Out the Barrel,” and “We’re Going to Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line.” The church said they may be able to find some tea for afterward, but I’m not counting on it. Following that, well, back home, and back to reality.
The Colonel has to move to London, probably next week or the week after. He told me over dinner last night, at the kitchen table. All we had was oxtail soup and some bread and butter, but it didn’t seem to matter.
“I’d really rather stay here, you know,” he said, looking rather crestfallen. “I’ve grown to like it, and all that.”
“Yes, I suppose I’ve grown used to you being here, too.”
“Have you?”
“Yes.”
“Will you miss me, then?”
“Of course I will.” I carried on eating my soup, even though he’d put down his spoon.
“Will you write to me?” he asked carefully.
“Of course,” I replied. “I love writing letters. I do hope you’ll reply, tell me how things are in London, whether we’re going to win the war, that kind of thing.”
“No, I mean it,” he said more quietly, seriously.
“So do I.”
We watched each other for a few moments, the spoon midway to my mouth, and I suddenly felt like we were in some sort of battlefield. It was clear that he liked me and I liked him. We had grown to fit around one another, fill the gaps of space between us. The comfort and support, the lively conversation and banter, the fleeting feeling of passion, love even. I knew he felt it, too. It had woven its way around the pair of us together, in unison, each move of the one bringing the other closer, and vice versa.
He brought out a gift for me, “a thank-you-for-having-me-stay gift,” he called it. I took off the newspaper wrapping and beheld a new dressing gown, soft and blue.
“Thank you,” I said, embarrassed, thinking of my battered brown one, wondering how he’d come across such a lovely item in the thick of war.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I just noticed that your old one was, well, old,” he murmured, also embarrassed.
After dinner we sat in the front room and listened to the news on the wireless, and then I put on a few gramophone records Kitty lent me from Prim’s collection. The first one was called “Cheek to Cheek,” that lovely dance number sung by Fred Astaire. Much to my surprise, within the first few bars, the Colonel was on his feet and asking me to stand up with him, right there in the front room.
At first I laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Why not? When do we ever get to dance these days? In any case, goodness knows when we’ll get the chance again.”
I thought of him living in London, the chance that something might happen to him, too. His near hit in Litchfield had given me a bit of a jolt. I began thinking that one by one all the people I’ve ever cared for will be taken away from me. He must have seen my face, as he said: “Now stop thinking miserable thoughts and enjoy the moment.”
He hauled me up out of my seat and pulled me toward him, and began to gallantly waltz me around the small space. I laughed nervously. He was a surprisingly good dancer for such a large, cumbersome man, light on his feet and competently leading me around and around, one hand firm on my waist, the other clasping my slender hand. I’m medium height, or thereabouts, so my eyes were level with his chest. We must have looked quite comedic, spinning around the dim little room in our own world.
When it finished, we were left standing in the center of the room; the deep red glow of the curtains and rug was warm, close. He pulled away from me and looked down, bent his head a little to one side, and I knew he was about to kiss me.
I panicked, pulled back, started flustering. It’s not as if I’d never thought about him in this way. Or that I’d never dreamed about kissing him. I just didn’t ever see it actually happening. Now I panicked even more. Perhaps he mistook my panicking for not wanting to kiss him. What would happen if he never wanted to kiss me again?
So I stopped panicking, stepped up to him, reached my hands behind his neck, and pulled him down to kiss me. It was all a little clumsy, but we got there in the end, and it was well worth it. An incredible sense of bliss and fortitude drenched my body. I’d never thought that kissing was so divine. I suppose I must have forgotten, parceled it up in a storage box in my brain with a large label: Do not open.