When the Lights Go on Again (21 page)

Sasha could understand why her mother-in-law-to-be thought that. She and her two daughters, Bobby’s sisters, were all comfortably upholstered and sturdy-looking. The three of them shared the same warm-hearted manner, and Bobby’s sisters, Irene and Jane, were both jolly young women who laughed a lot and ribbed one another good-naturedly whilst they talked about their work at the fish market where the fishing fleet brought in their catches.

They had all made her feel welcome but their customs and their way of life were not hers and felt more alien to her than Sasha had expected.

Now with Christmas afternoon fading into grey darkness Sasha was beginning to feel extremely sorry for herself. This morning, for instance, there
had been no Christmas stocking hanging on her bed, carefully prepared by her mother, and no Lou either to share that special Christmas morning excitement with. No delicious Christmas lunch cooked by her mother either – Bobby’s mother meant well, but she didn’t share Sasha’s mother’s domestic skills. Not that Sasha felt particularly interested in food. She had so looked forward to spending Christmas with Bobby as his fiancée, the two of them an acknowledged couple, but nothing was turning out the way she had envisaged.

Take this morning. After church they had gone round to Bobby’s mother’s cousin’s, whose husband ran a pub close to the docks. This, apparently, was one of their family traditions and the pub had been packed with family, all eager to meet Sasha. The pub had, of course, been closed for Christmas Day, but Sasha had had a horrible shock when their hostess had summoned Sasha herself and Bobby’s sisters, and instructed them to go down into the cellar to bring up some more bottles of beer.

‘There’s no light working down there – the bulb went last night and I haven’t had time to replace it – so mind how you go. I’ll leave the door at the top open for you,’ she had told them.

Frozen with fear at the thought of descending into the unknown darkness, Sasha had made the excuse that she needed the toilet. After that she hadn’t been able to relax for fear of having to go down into the cellar.

Sasha had never given much thought to Bobby’s
life at home in Newcastle before the war, but now, their Christmas Dinner over, sitting in the small cramped front room with its leatherette furniture, and squashed in the middle of the sofa between Irene and Jane, Irene’s two children sitting on the floor, the coal fire hissing, and listening to his sisters ribbing Bobby about being seasick and therefore unsuited for the life of a fisherman, Sasha suddenly realised with a sharp thrill of dismay that his family were expecting them to make their home in Newcastle once the war was over and they were married.

The very thought of doing that filled Sasha with panic. She couldn’t live up here so far away from her family and everything she knew. What little she had seen of Newcastle on their walk from the station and their trip to the pub this morning had shown her a city as war weary and indomitable as her own home city of Liverpool, but whilst Liverpool might also have its rows and rows of terraced houses without any greenery to be seen, her parents did not live in that kind of environment. The part of Liverpool where Sasha had grown up was on the border with Wavertree, an area that had been developed by builders to provide comfortable homes in a pleasant suburban environment for families. They might only live on the western edge of Wavertree, but they had lived within easy walking distance of its park, and its tennis club, Sasha’s home was on an avenue, not on a street, and that avenue was planted with trees. Bobby’s mother’s house opened straight onto the pavement, and at the back of the house all there
was, was a yard with a privy in it. The house did not have either an inside lavatory or a bathroom, and now it seemed that Bobby’s mother was expecting them to set up home here.

‘Give over, you two,’ Bobby’s mother told her daughters, getting up to cuff Jane, who was closer to her, good-naturedly with a large hand – Bobby’s mother was twice the size of Sasha’s own mother. ‘You’ll have poor Sasha here thinking that our Bobby won’t be able to provide for her, telling him he won’t get a job on a fishing boat. Don’t you listen to them, pet. Our Bobby’s got a job waiting for him on dry land, down at the fish market, once this lot is over and Hitler’s bin sent packing. Me cousin Frank wot runs a stall down there, he’s promised to see Bobby right. Of course, it won’t bring in as much as he’s getting now from the army. I dunno what I’d have done without him sending me half his wages every week. Still, we’ll manage, eh, pet? I’d have liked to have you living here wi’ me ‘cos that would be more comfortable for you, like, but there isn’t enough room. Our Irene’s had to go and live with her in-laws, but then they’ve got two spare rooms, which means that there’s one for the kiddies as well as one for Irene and her hubby.’

‘Our gran’s on her own now, Mam, since our granddad died. And she’s got a spare room, Mam,’ Jane chipped in. ‘Bobby and Sasha can move in with her and then, wi’ Sasha being there to keep an eye on our gran, you won’t have to go running round there with Gran’s dinners and that. You’ll have to watch Gran, though, Sasha,’ Jane confided.
‘She’s gone a bit forgetful and there’s a couple of times when she’s bin found wandering in the street in her nightclothes.’

Sasha had heard enough. In a panic she got to her feet and told them, ‘No. When me and Bobby get married we’ll be living in Liverpool, not here.’

The silence that filled the small room as Bobby’s mother and sisters looked first at her and then at one another made Sasha’s face burn. She knew full well that had her own mother been there she would have had a sound telling-off for her lack of manners and tact, and now she felt very alone and very close to humiliating tears.

‘Had any Christmas lunch, have you?’ the officer temporarily in charge of the order room asked Lou after he had cleared the paperwork for the Spit she had just delivered.

Lou shook her head.

‘Well, since we’ve just had a report that the weather is about to close in, and we’re going to have to close the airfield until tomorrow morning, why don’t I see if the mess can manage an extra meal?’

She was going to have to spend the night here? It wasn’t unusual for ATA pilots to be grounded because of the weather during the winter months, but that wasn’t the reason Lou’s heart suddenly beat faster.

‘Could I possibly use the telephone?’ Lou asked the ops officer. ‘Only my twin sister is up here in Newcastle visiting her fiancé’s family, and since I haven’t seen her for months, if I can’t pick up
another ferry until the morning I’d like to try and meet up with her, but I shall have to ring my family in Whitchurch to get her address.’

‘Help yourself,’ the ops officer smiled.

It was just as well that the people of Newcastle were so very friendly and helpful, Lou decided, as she stood on the step outside Bobby’s mother’s house, giving her careful directions whenever she had asked if she was going the right way. She just hoped that Sasha’s reaction to her would be as warm. Their mother had certainly approved of what Lou was doing, and had said so when Lou had telephoned to Grace and Seb’s cottage to get Bobby’s mother’s address.

Someone was coming to answer the door. The nervous butterflies in Lou’s tummy grew in intensity.

Sasha was upstairs, lying on the bed in the room she was sharing with Jane, when Lou arrived, and feeling guilty and miserable, and wishing she had not rushed out and up to the bedroom in the way that she had, but not knowing how she could make amends for her behaviour.

Then Jane came pounding up the stairs to open the bedroom door and announce breathlessly, ‘’Ere, you’d better come down, ‘cos your sister is here. Looks just like you, she does, an’ all.’

All Sasha could do was stare at her. ‘Lou’s here?’ she demanded in disbelief. ‘But…’

‘Come down and see for yourself,’ Jane told her.

A little shakily Sasha got up off the bed and followed Jane out of the room and down the dusty stairs with their threadbare runner of discoloured carpet.

Bobby’s mother, Jane and Bobby himself were standing in the narrow hallway, with Irene’s two small children clinging to their mother’s side, Bobby’s mother and Irene both talking at the same time, and then as they turned towards her, she could see her twin standing there looking up at her.

‘Lou!’

Sasha’s voice caught on a small sob as she covered the short distance between them.

It was going to be all right. She had done the right thing, Lou recognised with relief as Sasha hugged her and she hugged her twin back.

‘I can’t believe that you’re really here,’ Sasha said for the umpteenth time later as she and Lou sat together on the leatherette sofa.

‘I was a bit worried that I might be intruding,’ Lou admitted. ‘But it just seemed too good an opportunity to miss, especially with it being Christmas. Mum and everyone send their love, by the way.’

‘You’ve spoken to Mum?’ Sasha’s voice was wistful.

‘I had to ring Grace to get your address,’ Lou
answered her matter-of-factly, before adding, ‘The people up here are ever so kind, aren’t they? I had to keep stopping to ask for directions once my lift had dropped me off at the station.’

‘Oh, Lou, I’m so glad you’re here,’ Sasha told her twin, looking a bit teary.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Lou asked. ‘You and Bobby haven’t had a fall-out, have you?’

‘No, but, Lou, Bobby’s mother seems to think me and Bobby will be living up here once we’re married. She wants us to move in with Bobby’s gran.’ Tears glistened in Sasha’s eyes. ‘I don’t think I could bear it. I want to stay in Liverpool.’

‘Well, you’ll just have to tell Bobby that. Anyone can see that there’s not much he wouldn’t do to make you happy, Sash,’ Lou assured her twin.

Sasha managed a slightly watery smile. Lou had always had that way of making problems seem unimportant.

Sasha took a deep breath. The unexpected arrival of her twin had broken through the barriers Sasha had erected between them and now she had a longing to unburden herself to Lou.

‘I was thinking about you this morning,’ Sasha agreed. ‘And about Christmas.’

‘I was doing the same,’ Lou admitted. ‘I love being in ATA, just like you love being with Bobby, but that didn’t stop me feeling a bit sorry for myself this morning because I wasn’t at home.’

Sasha gave Lou a grateful smile. ‘That’s exactly how I felt.’ She added shakily, ‘Lou, you know the last time we were at home together, and I had my torch? Well, it wasn’t so that I could read in bed.
Lou, don’t laugh at me but…’ Sasha took another deep breath, ‘sometimes I have these terrible nightmares that I’m back in that crater with the bomb. You’re there too and you’re holding my hand, stopping me from falling under the bomb, just like you did, but then you let go.’ Sasha managed a weak smile. ‘You don’t say why but I sort of think it’s because of Kieran and you wanting to get back to him ‘cos you’d left him to find me. Anyway, you let go and then I’m falling. I can’t breathe and it’s dark and the bomb’s there and I know that I’m going to die.’

‘Oh, Sash!’ Emotion dampened Lou’s eyes as she hugged her twin fiercely. ‘I would never let you fall, never, not for anyone, and least of all for Kieran Mallory. You and me, we’re a pair. You’re part of me and I’m part of you. If you were going to die under any bomb – which you aren’t ‘cos your Bobby rescued you – then I’d be there with you.’

This was why Sasha had been so withdrawn and had seemed so distant with her for so long, Lou recognised, and her heart ached for all that her twin must have endured, at the same time as she felt guilty because she hadn’t known, and because Sasha obviously hadn’t been able to tell her how she felt.

‘You should have told me before,’ she rebuked her gently.

‘I should have done,’ Sasha agreed, ‘but I was so mixed up inside myself, Lou, that I couldn’t. I knew you’d stayed with me but then in my dreams, when you left me, it made me feel…angry inside
and hurt, and frightened. I couldn’t tell anyone what it was like, not you and not even Bobby. I feel ever so much better now that I’ve told you.’

‘And I feel better for knowing. I’ve been worrying, wondering what it’s been that has made you so unhappy.’

‘Oh, Lou, I’m so glad you came today,’ Sasha told her. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

Lou knew that Sasha wasn’t just talking about missing her because it was Christmas.

‘I’ve missed you too. We’ve had our misunderstandings,’ Lou said gruffly, ‘but that doesn’t mean that we don’t still…well, we are still us, Sash, and I mean that promise I made you. You can trust me never ever to do anything that might hurt you.’

‘I know. I knew that all the time really, but my bad dreams just kept getting in the way of me believing it.’

As they hugged one another tightly, Lou made a silent prayer of thankfulness that the gulf between them had finally been bridged, and promised herself that she would never let anything come between them again. She could only imagine what poor Sasha must have gone through in that bomb shaft. She knew how terrified she had been that she might lose her grip on her twin. It was no wonder the experience had had such a misery-inducing effect on her twin.

They were laughing together when Bobby’s mother returned with the tea she had gone off to make, accompanied, of course, by her daughters, her grandchildren and by Bobby, who had tactfully
left the sisters to have a few minutes together on their own.

‘Well, I just can’t get over how alike the two of you look. Got a young chap, have you yourself, Lou? Only if you had you and Sasha would look ever so lovely having a double wedding,’ Bobby’s mother commented.

‘No. I’m single and fancy-free,’ Lou answered her.

It had been a funny Christmas, Sasha thought sleepily later that night as she lay in bed. She had been so miserable earlier, but once Lou had arrived everything had changed. She’d got Bobby’s mother and sisters holding their sides laughing when she’d told them some tales of their childhood antics, and then somehow or other, the turkey carpet had been rolled back and she and Lou had given them a demonstration of their dancing. This had led to Lou trying to teach Irene and Jane how to jitterbug, which had everyone breathless and giggling. Then they’d walked round to another relative of Bobby’s mother’s and there’d been a singsong round the piano, which Sasha had joined in instead of hanging back, thanks to Lou being there.

Having everything right again between her and Lou had lifted a weight from her shoulders she hadn’t even known was there, Sasha admitted, and there’d even been enough time on the walk home, when Lou had linked up with Irene and Jane so that Sasha could fall behind everyone else with Bobby, for her to tell Bobby how much she wanted them to stay in Liverpool.

To her relief he had immediately reassured her,
telling her ruefully, ‘The truth is that I’ve never fancied spending the rest of my life gutting fish, which is one of the reasons why I joined the army in the first place. If I could choose a job for meself when this war is over I’d go for summat like your dad does,’ he had confided. ‘He’s a grand man, your dad, Sash, one of the best.’

‘And so are you, Bobby,’ Sasha had responded.

After that they had had to run to catch up with the others on account of Bobby taking advantage of their turning a corner to hold Sasha back so that he could kiss her and whisper to her, ‘Happy Christmas.’