Harry gazed around him at the walls covered in shelves and filing cabinets. This would be his new workplace. He’d never seen himself as a pen-pusher but it looked as if this was what he would become. The desk at which he sat was scratched and dull, and his long legs barely fitted underneath it. Already he felt cramped and uncomfortable.
Through the one window he could see khaki-coloured vehicles parked close together. Perhaps he could learn to drive one of them in the future. Meanwhile he was stuck here, booking them in and out, keeping records of their maintenance, watching out for when spare parts needed to be ordered. Not budgeting – that was someone else’s job. He had already been told in no uncertain terms the limits of what he was to do, and how frowned upon it would be to encroach on somebody else’s territory.
Harry sighed and flexed his arm muscles to ease the tension he could sense was building. He should be glad finally to be doing something useful again, not stuck in hospital any more, now back in active service. He had his special ointment to apply to his remaining scars and wounds, and exercises to do in order to improve his arm movement, but as long as he kept going to regular check-ups he didn’t need to be under a doctor’s daily care any more.
The trouble was, in his mind he had still not fully adjusted to the idea that this was as active as his service was likely to get. Men he had trained with were off fighting in North Africa or the Far East. Some had not made it through, but at least they had seen plenty of action. In his head he was still a fit young fighter, eager for glory, dealing with physical hardships and discomforts as part of the job.
Harry knew he should be grateful, and if the worst physical discomfort he had to put up with was a bit of cramp in the legs, then he was lucky. He rolled his shoulders to ease the pain in his neck. His injured arm responded with a twinge, but nothing compared to what it used to be like when he moved it. Perhaps those exercises were working and his arm would get back to something like normal, in the end.
He had to keep believing that. After the drama of the wedding, the stay in the grand hotel and the wonderful warmth of a family Christmas, it had been difficult to wave goodbye and come here to his new base, the closest to his old hospital. He and Edith had always known they would not be able to start their married life living in the same place, but it had been tough to leave her there in Dalston after so many nights together. He shut his eyes for a moment, remembering his beautiful, brave wife. He wondered what she was doing right now. Pedalling that cranky old bike along the bomb-damaged terraces, most likely. He grinned in spite of himself at the image, wishing he was there with her.
‘Asleep already?’ came a sharp voice.
Harry sat up straight and made his expression alert. His immediate boss was a tough woman in her forties, greying hair clipped severely, her army uniform immaculate. He was glad he had made an effort to press his own into sharp creases, but being caught with his eyes shut had probably undone any good impression he had hoped to make.
Before he could answer, she plonked a pile of manila files on his desk. ‘Requisition orders,’ she said shortly. ‘See that they match what’s actually been done to the relevant engines. Report any discrepancies to me before lunch. That should keep you awake at least.’ Without waiting for a reply she marched out again.
Harry stared at the folders, his heart sinking. This was what he was in for, until the war ended. His dreams of winning a medal for bravery would never come true. Nobody got a Victoria Cross for perfect administration. Reluctantly he drew his pen towards him and opened the topmost file. So be it. This was the hand that fate had dealt him and he just had to get on with it.
Peggy welcomed the arrival of spring, the first shoots of green on the bare branches of the trees, the sparrows chirping more noisily, the evenings growing lighter. It meant that she could fit in a walk around the park after her regular shift at the factory, and she relished the exercise after being cooped up inside all day. The air was warmer too and she could pack away her heavy winter coat, wondering if she would be able to have a new one next year. It would make a nice change, but this one would last for another cold season, if she was honest, so she folded it carefully and added some dried lavender in muslin pouches to go in the pockets. She hated the smell of mothballs, and some people said this worked just as well.
Now she waited for the knock on the door. Peggy had run into Edith when she was on an early visit that morning and they had decided to go for a walk together after they had both finished work. Peggy had come back to the house first, to change her shoes and try out her latest piece of home-made jewellery, a cleverly cut brooch made from three scraps of plastic and some left-over enamel paint, highlighted with zigzags of nail polish. Peggy was quietly pleased with it. It made her feel smart and modern, even if it was just for a walk with her friend.
As she pinned it to her lapel, there came the sound of the letterbox. Peggy hurried down the stairs but Mrs Cannon got there first and was already smiling at Edith as Peggy reached the hall.
‘Come in, dear. Have you got time for a cup of tea?’
Edith looked across at Peggy, already in her jacket. ‘That’s very kind, but perhaps we’d better go straight out to make the most of the daylight,’ she said. ‘I’d love to another time, though.’
Mrs Cannon nodded understandingly. ‘Of course. You are always welcome, you and the rest of your colleagues. I know how hard you work. Is everything all right?’ she added, catching Edith’s expression as the shorter woman turned in the weak sunlight coming through the open door.
Edith shrugged. ‘Oh, it’s probably nothing.’ She glanced back over her shoulder as Mrs Cannon pushed the door to behind her, keen to keep the warmth in. ‘I’m most likely imagining it.’
‘Imagining what?’ asked Peggy.
‘It was so quick, I might have misunderstood,’ Edith said. ‘Just across the road there, in one of the houses opposite – I caught sight of someone staring at me as I knocked at your door. A young man, by the looks of him. He didn’t look very friendly. But it could have been about anything.’
Peggy frowned. ‘Which house exactly?’
Edith pointed in the general direction. ‘It had a dark red door.’
Peggy nodded. ‘I know the one. Mrs Bellings lives there. But I don’t know about a young man. She’s on her own. She hasn’t got any children, has she?’ She turned to Mrs Cannon.
The older woman pursed her lips as she tried to remember. ‘There’s a daughter, a couple of years older than you, I would say. She got married before the war and moved away. Let me see now … Yorkshire, I think it was. Full of airs and graces as I seem to recall, never too keen to come back to visit her mother.’
Peggy couldn’t help but think that if Mrs Bellings had been her mother she wouldn’t have been in any hurry to come home either.
‘Wait, now. She said something the other day.’ Mrs Cannon’s expression cleared. ‘It will be her nephew. She told me her sister’s boy had gone into the army and wanted to spend a part of his leave in London. Wants to enjoy the high life up in the West End, I dare say.’
Edith nodded. ‘Well, good luck to him. Looks as if he could do with something to cheer him up. Come on, Peggy, let’s make the most of the weather.’
‘Yes, you go on and do that,’ said Mrs Cannon, shutting the door behind them.
‘Listen to that. Is it a blackbird?’ Edith came to a halt and looked up into the trees. ‘Just up there. Maybe your eyesight is better than mine.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Peggy, peering up into the branches. ‘Isn’t your work often detailed and delicate? And you don’t wear glasses.’
Edith laughed. ‘I’m all right for close-up jobs. I had to take some stitches out earlier. Dr Patcham said I’d be good enough and just to keep a steady hand. As it turned out the patient was more nervous than I was and I spent so long reassuring her to get her to stop shaking, I didn’t have time to worry. She didn’t like needles. I told her, she’d have been in deep trouble if Dr Patcham hadn’t sewn up her arm, as she’d caught it on broken glass.’
‘Easy to do,’ said Peggy. They’d all had narrow escapes from similar incidents – there were so many smashed windows everywhere.
Edith linked her arm through her friend’s and strolled on. ‘Hard to believe we’re at war on an evening like this,’ she sighed.
‘Apart from the trenches and sandbags,’ Peggy pointed out. ‘Oh, and the number of people in uniform.’ There were several men in air-force blue and some Wrens on the other side of the stretch of green.
‘All right, but you know what I mean.’
‘Yes,’ Peggy admitted. ‘Sorry, I’m just teasing. How about your own man in uniform – have you heard from Harry lately? It must be difficult, getting married then having to be apart directly afterwards.’
‘Well, you’d know,’ Edith replied.
‘Exactly, that’s why I asked,’ Peggy confessed.
Edith walked a few paces before answering. ‘Well, of course we knew that this is what it would be like. There was no chance we could live together, or even be in the same city. He’s got a desk job now, so that’s something.’
‘Bet he hates that,’ Peggy said at once. ‘He never could sit still at a desk, even when we were at school. Always wanted to be up and doing something, or out playing football. He always used to say that desks were for people like Joe, not him.’
Edith nodded. ‘He won’t say so in his letters, of course, but I have this horrible feeling you are right. He can’t go back to proper active service, though. I wish I could be with him to help but it’s not possible. So I write and tell him how much I miss him, and hope for the best. When I get my next leave, I’ll go and see him, but that won’t be for a while.’
Peggy nodded and smiled wryly. ‘It’s hell, though, isn’t it. Now that you know what you’re missing.’
Edith grinned. ‘It is. He’s everything I hoped for and more, and his injuries haven’t changed a thing. I just hope he keeps believing that too.’ They followed the curve of the path beneath more trees, with birds singing brightly overhead. ‘Anyway, what about you? Are you still writing to that GI?’
Peggy gave a small smile. ‘Yes, I am. Do you think that it’s bad, too soon after Pete?’ Her voice became anxious as she asked the question.
Edith shook her head. ‘None of my business. If he makes you happy, then why shouldn’t you? Dunkirk was almost three years ago. We’re not getting any younger either.’
Peggy gazed up into the trees. ‘I know. But even so, James is special. He’s not like any old soldier I’ve been dancing with. He sent me some lovely soap for Christmas, I told you, didn’t I.’
‘Lucky you,’ said Edith, with heartfelt sincerity. ‘My hands are red and raw by the end of the week as we always have to wash in carbolic between patients. I’d love something really soft, but it’s so hard to find.’
‘That’s only one reason why he’s special,’ Peggy went on. ‘He sent me a Valentine’s card too, and he’d made it himself. Can you imagine a man doing that? He’d drawn a picture of a couple dancing, and she was in a spotty dress and he had a spotty tie. Just like the one I sent him for Christmas. It’s our little joke.’ She blushed a little, having got carried away with her description, as she hadn’t meant to tell anyone. ‘You know, like the Ink Spots. It’s silly but I don’t care.’
Edith giggled. ‘You’ll have to get yourself a spotty dress then. He must be clever, to be able to draw like that. I wish I could.’
Peggy twirled around. ‘He’s so kind and understanding. You’ll have to meet him the next time he comes to town. I sent him a card too, but I can’t draw for toffee. I got it down the market.’
‘It’s the thought that counts,’ Edith assured her. ‘So when is his next leave?’
Peggy stopped twirling and grew more serious. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think he does either – I’m sure he’d tell me. It can’t come soon enough, if I’m honest.’ She blushed again, unsure if she should give away how deeply she was beginning to feel for the young man.
But Edith had picked up on her tone. ‘You really like him, don’t you?’
Peggy bit her lip. ‘Yes,’ she said, after a pause. The blackbirds were singing their hearts out in the branches above. ‘It’s not like when I first started walking out with Pete – that was completely different. We’d known each other at school; we had the same group of friends; we lived a few streets away from one another. This feels like … a leap into the unknown. He’s from a place I’ve only ever seen in films; he talks different, he looks different, and yet …’ She twisted her hands together. ‘It’s like I’ve known him for ever. It doesn’t make sense, I realise that.’
Edith nodded sagely. ‘Sounds as if you’ve got it bad, Peggy. Well, good for you. It’s not every day that someone like that comes along. You’d better make the most of it.’
Peggy exhaled deeply, even though she hadn’t been aware that she’d been holding her breath. ‘I’m so glad to hear you say that, Edie. I’ve been wondering and wondering what to do – whether I’m being daft, or letting him sweet-talk me like some of them do—’
‘He doesn’t sound like one of those types,’ Edith interrupted, knowing how her friend had been treated in the past.
‘And he’s a soldier, of course. Anything could happen.’ Peggy stated the obvious. ‘What if I do care for him and what if he feels the same – then he goes and gets killed too?’ She came to a halt and faced the nurse. ‘I don’t think I could survive that twice. It almost killed me too, when Pete died. Well, you know what it’s like more than most.’
Edith agreed sombrely. ‘Yes, it’s the worst feeling ever. All the same,’ she took her friend’s arm again, ‘you can’t let that stop you. What if he does come through the fighting? What if you hadn’t made the most of what time you could have had? Wouldn’t you regret that more?’
Peggy by now was almost in tears, the full realisation of how she felt dawning on her, and the impossibility of it – and the impossibility of saying no. ‘What do I do, Edie?’ she breathed. ‘What do I do?’
Edith shook her head. ‘I can’t tell you, Peggy. Only you can decide. But, well, I know you, and you’ve never been shy of taking a risk.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Have you?’
Peggy acknowledged what Edith was saying. Sometimes she’d taken silly risks, with servicemen she’d met when dancing or drinking down the pub, but only because they didn’t really matter and she hadn’t felt that she mattered much either. Now the stakes were raised. She didn’t feel like that silly, desperate young woman any more.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s all about what I’d regret more, isn’t it? I don’t want to get hurt that badly again, I really don’t. But if I didn’t try – then I don’t want to be an old woman looking back and thinking I was too much of a coward to try again. I think he’s worth it, Edie.’