The Light Over London(56)

I know it’s no excuse, but I behaved badly because I miss you so much. Learning that I would be unable to take leave was a blow, and I lashed out. It’s easier sometimes to convince myself that you don’t truly care for me—that you write your letters because you pity a pilot who is in too deep to understand that our time together in Cornwall was just your way of offering a bit of comfort during this war. Nothing more.

You see, without you, darling, it feels as though a part of me is missing. I think about our afternoon drinking champagne at that little hotel on the cliffs above the beach and the times we sat in the cinema together, so happy just to be holding hands. But those memories alone aren’t enough to keep me warm when I’m flying. Knowing what your lips taste like is no longer enough. I need to feel them against mine again and so much more.

It’s a cruel trick of fate to find the woman you want in a little village hall in Cornwall, only to be sent away again. If I had my way, I’d wrap you in cotton wool and send you off to safety in the country with my parents.

All I can do is pray that soon I’ll be able to take my leave so that I can travel to London and kiss you again. If you’ll forgive me.

With all my love,

Paul

I teared up reading his letter, and I had to stop and compose myself twice. He’s never once told me his worries that I’ll meet another man or that this has all just been a fling I don’t have the courage to let go of. If he had, I could have reassured him by telling him the truth. I love him—I truly do—and it hurts to think that he doubts that.

I’ll write to him and let him know he’s forgiven. I only wish I could say the words to him.





14


LOUISE


It wasn’t just nights in the Ack-Ack Shack that kept B Section busy. Afternoons were occupied with debriefs and lectures and constant retraining to keep them sharp. Therefore, three weeks had passed before the ATS and the RA granted B Section twenty-four hours’ leave, and when it came, there was no question that Charlie, Vera, and Louise would go into town.

They giggled all the way on the bus from Woolwich to Shoreditch and then to the tube station, sobering only when they saw the long lines of people already milling around waiting for the gates to open so they could spread out over the platforms in a bid for shelter that night.

They disembarked at Monument and walked until they reached St. Paul’s. No matter where Louise looked, London was in a state of destruction and repair. Some bomb sites lay fallow, stubborn buddleias blooming as their roots clung to what little soil was scattered over the remnants of houses. On other lots just a few houses away, men climbed up and down ladders to fix roofs, board up windows, and try their best to make the structures sound again before the biting chill of autumn swept through the city.

Still, despite the constant reminders of war, Charlie and Vera did their level best to show Louise the sights and sounds of the capital.

“If we weren’t in war and rationing wasn’t on, I’d insist we get ice creams,” said Vera, who walked on Louise’s right as the three girls, arms linked, strolled down the Embankment toward the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben looming in the distance.

“We’ll just have to dream of all that,” said Charlie, sighing.

They walked by a couple of soldiers who craned their necks to stare.

“It’s like they can see right through the uniforms,” said Vera with a tug at her tunic.

“All they’d get is an eyeful of passion killers,” said Charlie.

“I wish the uniform was a little more . . . flattering,” said Louise.

“I’ll never understand how those stuck-up Wrens wound up with better uniforms than we did,” said Charlie with a laugh tinged with equal parts jest and jealousy over the streamlined, flattering cut that the women in the navy’s auxiliary branch wore.

“Vera should’ve been a Wren,” Louise teased.

“You know I couldn’t go into the WRNS. I’m from an army family,” said Vera.

“But they’re so posh, Miss Finishing School,” said Charlie.

Vera’s snort was decidedly unladylike. “You mean the school that taught me nothing more than how to instruct servants and climb into and out of a car without letting my slip show?”

“Destined to be a lady,” said Charlie.

“Oh, what an ambition,” said Vera.

“What would you rather do?” Louise asked.

“I don’t know, if I’m being truthful,” said Vera. “I just know that I don’t want to sit on committees and hold teas for charities, like my mother.”

“What about you, Charlie?” Louise asked.

All at once, Charlie seemed to have been hit by an uncharacteristic bashfulness, as she toyed with the box camera that hung around her neck, one of her few possessions she’d hauled from Leicester to Oswestry to Woolwich.

“You won’t laugh?” Charlie asked quietly.

“It can’t be more far-fetched than what I’d want to do if this war wasn’t on,” said Louise.

Charlie blinked up at her a couple of times and then smiled. “All right then. I’d want to be a journalist.”

“You should’ve tried for it when they asked us what we wanted to do in Leicester,” said Vera.

Charlie shook her head. “They give those jobs to the men.”