My Sweet Valentine (7 page)

‘Take it from me,’ Drew corrected her, ‘he’s interested, but no way is he going to get a look-in.’

‘No way at all,’ Tilly agreed, stopping at the end of the dance floor to kiss Drew’s cheek. ‘You’re the only man I want, Drew.’ She paused to tuck her arm through his as they headed for their table, then asked him, ‘Have you told your family yet – about us, I mean? Mum had a lovely letter from your mother with her Christmas card but it didn’t say anything about you and me, but then if you have written to them they probably wouldn’t have got your letter before they sent the Christmas Card.’

‘I’ve told them that I’ve met a very special girl,’ Drew answered her, turning his head as he did so, so that she couldn’t see his expression. He changed the subject to warn her, ‘Dulcie’s heading our way with Wilder, and I know he isn’t your favourite person.’

‘I don’t like the way he treats Dulcie,’ Tilly admitted. ‘I know she seems worldly-wise on the outside but I’m afraid that Wilder might hurt her. You said that you don’t think she’s the only girl he’s seeing, but I don’t think she knows that.’

Drew nodded, feeling guiltily relieved that she had taken his lead on the subject. It wasn’t that he wanted to deceive Tilly – there was nothing he wanted more than to be completely honest with her – but it just wasn’t possible. Not at the moment, not yet. Just as it wasn’t possible for him to be totally honest with his family about his feelings for Tilly. If he wasn’t being totally honest with Tilly then it was because he loved her and wanted to protect her, that was all.

‘Not long until midnight now,’ Dulcie announced, coming to sit down next to Tilly as Drew pulled up a chair for her.

‘So don’t you go and disappear with some fast piece,’ Dulcie warned her brother. ‘I don’t want the only member of my family I’ve seen over Christmas disappearing with some girl just as it strikes midnight.’

‘If anyone’s likely to disappear to have an illicit bit of how’s your father with some girl he’s just met, it’s that fly boy of Dulcie’s, not me,’ Rick muttered in an aside to Drew whilst Dulcie was talking to Wilder. When Rick realised that Tilly had overheard him, he apologised. She
shook her head in response to his, ‘Sorry …’ She was more concerned about the fact that Rick’s opinion of Wilder matched her own than she was about his sturdy male language. She was very fond of Dulcie and would hate to see her hurt.

‘Do you think there’ll be many there?’ Agnes asked Ted as they hurried arm in arm through the cold night air in the direction of Trafalgar Square, to share in the traditional way of bringing in the New Year.

‘I should think so,’ Ted assured her. ‘Londoners aren’t going to let something like a few German bombs stop them from celebrating.’

At Barts Sally looked at the watch she wore pinned to the front of her uniform apron, as she emerged from the operating theatre for her break. Ten minutes to go. She and George had promised that they’d think of one another the moment midnight started to chime. For someone who prided herself on being so matter-of-fact she was surprised how emotional she felt that they weren’t seeing out the old year and welcoming in the new one together.

Setting off in the direction of the stairs, she thought that she might as well go to the canteen, where she could at least welcome in the New Year amongst the other staff who were on their breaks.

She almost made it, would have made it, if she hadn’t been stopped in her tracks by the totally unexpected sound of George’s voice calling out breathlessly from behind her.

‘Sally.’

She spun round to stare at him in disbelief, then she was running towards him, ignoring the rule that nurses never ran unless there was an emergency. After all, there
was
an emergency of sorts, the emergency of reaching the man she loved and wanted to spend the rest of her life with, before the clocks struck midnight.

Her, ‘What are you doing here?’ was muffled against his lips as he kissed her and then kissed her again, lifting her off her feet to hold her tight, his face cold from the air outside, but his body warm beneath his overcoat as she unfastened the buttons and burrowed close to him.

‘I wanted to see in the New Year with the girl I love,’ he answered her question.

‘You got leave?’

‘Not exactly, but I’m off duty until tomorrow evening, so I thought I’d risk coming up to London. I’ll have to go back on the first available train, though,’ he warned her.

‘You came all the way to London, because …’

‘Because I wanted to kiss my girl and wish her a Happy New Year,’ he finished for her.

For a minute Sally just looked at him, and then her voice trembled slightly as she whispered, ‘Oh, George.’

‘It’s midnight,’ he whispered back. ‘Happy New Year, my darling girl, and may it be just the first of a lifetime of Happy New Years for us.’

‘Oh, George, don’t say that,’ Sally begged him. ‘Don’t tempt fate by talking about the future. Just kiss me instead.’

‘Oh, Ted.’ Tears filled Agnes’s eyes as she turned towards her fiancé amongst the crowd of people who
had braved the threat of Hitler’s bombers to come out to celebrate the arrival of the New Year around the fountains in Trafalgar Square. Unlike before the war, there were no lights to illuminate the scene, only starlight shining fitfully through the still heavy pall of smoke, but from what Agnes could see, the couples who turned to one another didn’t seem to mind the lack of light – quite the opposite.

People were reaching out for one another’s hands, the sound of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ growing louder and stronger. As she looked at Ted, Agnes was sure that the diamond in her ring sparkled even more brightly than usual. She was so lucky, and so happy too, even if sometimes she did wish that Ted’s mother would be a bit more friendly. Ted had told Agnes not to worry about his mother’s lack of warmth towards her, stating in his calm good-natured way that eventually she’d come round. Never having known the love of her own mother, she had dearly hoped that Ted’s mother would take to her. Maybe one day she would, Agnes told herself hopefully, as she snuggled closer to Ted.

‘I love you,’ Drew mouthed to Tilly, knowing that it would be impossible for her to hear his voice in the cacophony of cheers, whoops and ‘Happy New Years’ that had filled the dancehall as midnight struck. Now they were standing up for ‘Auld Lang Syne’, the dance floor packed, people covered in streamers and the balloons that had been let down from the net above them.

‘I love you too,’ Tilly mouthed back to him. Everyone was laughing and hugging, Rick looking very happy with
the pretty little redhead on his arm, and Dulcie glowing from all the male attention she was getting from single servicemen eager to get their share of the kisses being exchanged to bring in the New Year.

‘Where’s Wilder? He’s missing all the fun,’ Tilly asked Dulcie, cupping her hand to the other girl’s ear so that she could hear her, her other hand holding tightly onto Drew’s.

‘Gone to the gents’,’ Dulcie yelled back.

Truth to tell, she wasn’t as concerned about Wilder missing the countdown to midnight as she might otherwise have been, thanks to the admiring attentions of a young naval officer who, Dulcie had to admit, looked far more handsome in his immaculate uniform than Wilder did in the worn leather jacket that he had insisted on keeping on, despite the heat in the packed the dancehall.

In fact, if anything, the young naval officer, with his open delight in her company, was far better company than Wilder, who had been offhand all evening, complaining that London’s way of welcoming in the New Year was a poor drab thing compared with New York’s.

‘Well, New York isn’t being bombed by the Germans, is it?’ Dulcie had snapped at him at one point in the evening, turning her back on him to sit with her arms folded dismissively across her chest. That was when the young naval officer – Mike – had seen her and had given her a look of bashful hope.

When the band had played a ladies excuse me, and Wilder had announced that he didn’t want to dance, she’d gone over and asked Mike to dance instead, encouraging him to come over to join their table, where she’d
introduced him to the others, telling Wilder prettily that she’d felt it was her duty to take pity on ‘one of our brave servicemen, who hasn’t got a dance partner’.

Wilder had responded with a grunt, and the unkind comment that Britain’s armed forces might be brave but they weren’t strong enough to defeat Hitler, and then he’d got up and walked off.

That had been half an hour ago.

Well, if Wilder thought that she was the sort of girl who got all anxious and upset about that kind of behaviour, he was going to find out that he was wrong, Dulcie decided, getting up to go and grab hold of her brother’s hand.

‘Come and dance with me, Rick …’

Later, from the dizzyingly blissful delight of Drew’s arms as they swayed romantically together beneath the dimmed lights to an intimately slow dance number, Tilly murmured to him, ‘I think that Dulcie and Wilder have had a bit of a tiff.’

‘Mmm,’ Drew murmured back. ‘Have I told you that your hair smells of honey and roses, and that your lips taste of paradise?’

Tilly closed her eyes and melted into him.

They had been so close tonight, mentally, emotionally and physically. Being held this close to him, being able to feel all of him against all of her was dangerously exciting. There was an ache low down in her body that made her want to press even closer to him, an awareness within her that the kisses they shared, no matter how sweet they were, could not alone satisfy the need that ached inside her.

Tilly knew what married intimacy entailed but she had
never imagined until she had met Drew that she would hunger for that intimacy so strongly and passionately before marriage.

They stayed on the floor until the notes of the last waltz of the evening had died away, returning to their table to find Rick and Dulcie waiting there for them but no sign of Wilder. He appeared a couple of minutes later, removing his handkerchief as he did so, Tilly’s heart hammering as the lights came up and she saw on it the telltale marks of bright orange lipstick. Bright orange when Dulcie was wearing deep pink.

Anxious for her friend, Tilly deliberately leaned across to block Dulcie’s view of Wilder, asking Rick with forced nonchalance, ‘When did you say your leave finished, Rick?’

He too leaned forward, and the look in his eyes suggested to Tilly that he too had seen those lipstick marks as he folded his arms on the table, forcing Wilder to sit back.

‘Tomorrow.’

Tilly nodded, glad of his sensitivity to Dulcie’s feelings.

It was later, after the taxi had dropped the four of them off at the top of Article Row – Wilder remaining in the taxi, having turned down Drew’s suggestion that he stay the night at Ian Simpson’s, insisting that he needed to get back to his base – that Tilly told Drew what had happened as they hung back behind Dulcie and Rick.

‘That’s one of the things I love about you,’ Tilly told him, cuddling up to him. ‘The fact that you’re so honest, Drew. I know you’d never deceive me about anything.’

Drew swallowed hard, conscious that there was
something he hadn’t been honest about with Tilly, and it was a very big something, a something that grew harder for him to bear with every fresh kiss they exchanged and every promise of shared love they made. What would happen when he did tell her? Would he lose her? He wouldn’t be able to bear that. He loved her so much, with her brave bright spirit, her fierce loyalty to those who mattered to her, her compassion for others, and her passionate nature.

Tilly didn’t object when Drew suddenly turned to her in the middle of the dark street, took her in his arms and kiss her fiercely. Why should she, when she loved it when he kissed her like that? The only thing was that it was a bit out of character for him to do so in such a public place. But then it was New Year.

Lying awake in bed waiting for Tilly and Dulcie to come in – Ted had brought Agnes home shortly after Olive had returned to number 13 herself, and Sally wouldn’t be off duty until the morning – Olive reflected on her own evening out. She was a sociable person by nature and naturally sympathetic to others, which often meant that people brought their troubles to her knowing they could confide in her and trust her not to repeat what they had told her to others. Normally Olive enjoyed and valued that role, but the trouble, as she was now discovering, was that there was no one for her to turn to when she herself needed to confide.

The evening had been very pleasant, a few hours of relief from the constant anxiety of the war, even if the recent bombing had been a major topic of conversation. And an incident had happened that had left her feeling wretched and guilty.

It had been about half-past eleven when Sergeant Dawson – Archie – had announced that he was taking his leave of them so that he could call round at the ARP post to wish his colleagues there all the best for the New Year and still make it home in time to welcome in 1941 with his wife.

Obviously he’d shaken hands with all those close to him, and naturally Olive had held out her hand to shake his; not to have done so would have been unthinkably rude. But then instead of shaking it he had simply held her hand between his own and …

Olive closed her eyes against the sharp knife of emotion that turned inside her, as she remembered the feelings that had swept her, the memories and the longing she had had no right to feel. How could she have allowed that to happen? How could she have felt, standing there with Sergeant Dawson clasping her hand in the warmth of his own, that shocking agonising need for the warmth of a man’s arms around her, combined with that awful surge of jealousy against those women who were lucky to have what she did not: the presence of loving husbands in their lives and in their beds.

Even now, remembering how she had felt, Olive could feel the small beads of sweat breaking out on her forehead. She was thirty-seven years old. She had been a widow for nearly eighteen years. Never once during those years had she felt the way she had felt tonight, watching Sergeant Dawson walk away from her, then turning to look at her friends with their husbands. Marriage could be hard work. All women knew that, once they were married. Decent respectable women – the kind of woman she had always believed herself to be – did not lie in
their beds at night with their bodies aching because they were on their own.