Authors: Val Rutt
Out of the Blue
Val Rutt lives in London where she divides her time between writing and teaching.
To find out more, visit her website:
First published in Great Britain in 2009
by Piccadilly Press Ltd,
5 Castle Road, London NW1 8PR
www.piccadillypress.co.uk
Text copyright © Val Rutt, 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
The right of Val Rutt to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978 1 84812 014 3
1 3 5 7 9 10 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the UK by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon, CR0 4TD
Typeset by Carolyn Griffiths, Cambridge
Cover design by Simon Davis
Cover photo © Corbis
Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders to gain permission for the use of copyright material in this book.
For my mother
and in
memory of
Jean and Laurie
The letter is unexpected. Its arrival, in this hot summer where nothing much has happened, is startling. There has been no hint of change; no sign of cloud in the blue morning
sky for a month. And then the letter arrives.
Dear Kitty Danby,
If this letter finds you, and you are the person I am looking for, then I hope that it’s okay to ask you some things about the war. I believe that you knew my
grandfather Samuel Ray Bailey. I am trying to find out about the time he spent in England during World War Two where he saw active service as a fighter pilot in the Air Force. I found your address
in the back of his pilot’s logbook and it would be great if you could give me any information you might have. I need to find out for a school assignment and I am real interested in
history.
Yours sincerely,
John F. Bailey Rowe
Kitty looks out through the window and sees five starlings swagger across the parched lawn. Something disturbs them and they take off in a group, leaving the garden empty.
Kitty continues to stare but she does not see. She is remembering the summer evening that she met Sammy Ray Bailey.
The hedges were high and dense, a tangle of bramble and honeysuckle winding through the hawthorn. Kitty was cycling home from choir. It was deliciously cool pedalling slowly in
the shade with the breeze lifting the hair from her forehead.
She had borrowed Charlie’s bicycle because she had been late; usually she walked. Last week, dawdling home, she had discovered a nest and four tiny gaping birds. Now, repeating the journey
by bicycle, she hoped to see the birds again.
She watched the hedge not the road, aware even as she did it that it was foolish, but pleased to be getting away with it. She took furtive glances ahead and adjusted her course, then continued
to gaze back into the hedgerow. As the greenery flitted past, she stared hard into the tiny shadows of space, trying to catch sight of a bird or a nest. Beneath her the wheels whirred and crackled
on the grit. She turned the pedals as slowly as she could while keeping upright, and the bicycle wobbled and snaked along, until, at last, the front wheel rose awkwardly over a hump in the road and
Kitty lost control of the machine.
As Kitty yanked hard on the handlebar and the bicycle veered wildly into the middle of the road, her stomach felt the wash of fear. Even so, the thought arrived in her head that this was
inevitable; had been bound to happen. She began struggling to regain control, but her movements were too jerky and sudden – the bicycle was completely independent of her and gathering speed
on a decline.
And so she was partly resigned to her fate, even as she attempted to keep her feet on the spinning pedals and resist the force that lifted her from the seat. When she took off over the
handlebars, Kitty became curiously aware of the brilliant sunshine in the blue sky above her. She registered the beauty around her and somehow had time to hear and see where a distant skylark sang
and hovered. She experienced the briefest moment of weightlessness followed by a sickening rush as she fell. Then she hit the ground – although it felt to her that the road hit her. As if she
had been still, suspended in space and the road had been swung at her like a gigantic cricket bat.
Kitty was lying in the road when Sammy found her a few minutes later. He heard her crying as he turned the corner. He quickened his pace and stooped to a crouch at her side.
‘Shh, shh, hey you’re okay, let me help you.’
She was slight and dark and her hair was a mess of half-tamed curls. Blood was running from both her knees, down her shins and as she wept she turned her arms and placed a hand to her side then
her head, searching out the places that hurt her.
‘Ow ow ow,’ she moaned through her tears as Sammy helped her to her feet. He steadied her and told her to ‘hold tight’ while he picked up the bicycle. ‘It’s
in a bit of a mess – the wheel’s buckled,’ he said.
Charlie’s bicycle. Charlie’s pride and joy.
‘It’s not mine,’ she sobbed.
‘Yeah, I figured that,’ he said. ‘It’s not a girls’ bike,’ then, as if seeing her properly for the first time and realising his mistake, he corrected himself.
‘I mean, it’s not a ladies’ bike.’
Kitty limped towards where he held the bicycle.
‘It’s my brother Charlie’s and he’ll kill me. I never asked him if I could use it.’
They stood with the bicycle between them and she was still crying though she was trying to be quiet. He told her later how her eyes had amazed him – they were large, set far apart and so
dark they appeared to be black. And the tears literally pooled up and overflowed in a way that had suddenly struck him as funny. Afraid he would laugh out loud, he looked down at the bicycle.
‘Well, I can fix it up for you if you like.’
‘Oh, do you think you could?’
‘Sure thing!’ He was smiling at her and Kitty blinked away tears and looked at him for the first time. His smile made him handsome and Kitty was suddenly self-conscious and dismayed.
His accent and the khaki uniform he wore told her that he was an American pilot. Heat began to prickle her scalp and she could feel her nose running. Trying to wipe her face discreetly, she glanced
down at her legs. Both knees were grazed and the blood was drying on her shins. She felt a new discomfort as the breeze stung the torn skin.
‘Well, I’d better get home now,’ she murmured and made to take the bicycle from him. He held on to it.
‘Look, I’ll come with you – make sure you’re okay.’
Kitty hung her head, she thought of saying no and sending him away, but she did not want to be rude. So she murmured her thanks, sniffed and nodded her head. Since her sixteenth birthday she had
been feeling grown-up. She had started styling her hair and wearing a little face powder. She considered herself to have made the transition to womanhood. Here she was, alone with a handsome
American serviceman – a situation if ever there was one that called for a girl to be ladylike and dignified – and she had two grazed knees and had bawled like a baby. Her hair that she
had carefully brushed and pinned was hanging round her face. She needed to blow her nose, but she had tucked her handkerchief into the leg of her knickers and couldn’t imagine how she might
retrieve it. Which just went to show, she thought miserably, how much of a child she still was – when would a grown woman ever go rummaging in her knickers for her hankie?
Sammy lifted the bicycle and put it through a gap in the hedge where it couldn’t be seen from the road.
‘I’ll come by and get it later,’ he said. Then, ‘Can you walk? Is it far?’ He offered his arm and Kitty let him lead her down the hill to Aunt Vi’s house. She
walked with her head down and noticed her scuffed shoes and the rhythmic throb of pain in her knees.
‘Do you remember what happened? Did you hit a pothole?’ he asked.
‘I was . . . I wasn’t paying attention.’ Kitty’s voice came out in a feeble croak and added to the things that made her wretched. She could not believe how suddenly and
utterly the day had changed from good to bad.
Choir practice had been fun. In between songs, Dora had whispered that her sister was coming home for the weekend and had promised to help her alter her clothes. Gwendolyn knew all about London
fashion. Dora could barely wait for the end of each song, before grabbing Kitty’s arm and chattering about skirt lengths, box pleats and necklines. Her excitement was infectious and Kitty had
left the hall grinning, with an invitation to spend Saturday afternoon dressmaking with Dora and Gwendolyn.
Then the lanes had been so beautiful and the bicycle had given her a sense of freedom. Kitty had felt that the world was good and life worth living, despite the war and all the bad things that
could happen. And now everything had gone wrong. Charlie was going to be so angry with her and most probably Uncle Geoff would too. And as for being discovered in such a mess by an American pilot,
the humiliation was unbearable. Without meaning to, Kitty groaned aloud.