‘Shush! She will hear you,’ a man’s voice warned. As the feeling in her hands and feet started to come back, Ena fought an overwhelming desire to sleep. Her head began to clear and her thoughts became more lucid. She heard a click, followed by second clink, as metal met metal. She lifted her head from the train’s window, opened her eyes, and squinted under her eyelashes.
Lights still flashed across her vision, but they were not as bright and there were not as many. And there was something else. Dark at first and then lighter, but never light enough to see who or what they were, two forms loomed up in front of her. What the…? Are they ghosts? Am I dead? Perhaps I am. ‘Hello?’ Ena said, but they didn’t answer. ‘Please help me,’ she called. This time they heard her, because the taller of the two shapes turned.
As if he was speaking from the bottom of a deep well, a man said, ‘She is awake.’
‘Give her another shot,’ the shorter shape hissed.
Ena felt thirsty, dehydrated. Able to move her tongue, she licked her lips. It made no difference. She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth to encourage saliva. It didn’t work. She took a breath and opened her mouth to speak. Before she could form the word help, the tall shape was bending over her. A second later everything turned black.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The platform on Euston station was a sea of people pushing to get to the exits. Ena spotted the buffet and weaved her way through the crowd to its entrance. She stumbled through the door and fell into the first empty seat. The buffet was noisy and as packed as the platform had been.
‘Excuse me, miss, is this seat taken?’
‘Yes,’ Ena whispered. She took a shuddering breath. ‘Please take it.’ She looked up, her eyes red and swollen from crying, to see a tall dark-haired man in his early twenties. He made no attempt to take the chair. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and realising he wanted to sit down, took her coat from the seat and laid it across her knees. ‘I thought--’ was all she said before tears fell again. She looked away, reached into her handbag and rummaged around for a clean handkerchief. She always kept a spare in her bag, but there wasn’t one in it today. The one bloody day she needed a spare hankie she didn’t have one. She took the handkerchief that she’d used earlier from beneath her coat. It was sodden. She gave a shuddering breath. It was the last straw. Overwhelmed by a feeling of defeat, she put her head in her hands and sobbed.
‘Excuse me?’ the young man said, offering Ena a neatly folded white handkerchief. Ena lifted her face to him and pressing her lips together – she daren’t speak for fear she would scream – took the handkerchief, nodded her thanks and wiped her tears.
She hardly noticed the young man get up from the table. When he returned it was with two hot drinks, tea for Ena and a black coffee for himself. He moved her empty cup and saucer to the other side of the table and replaced it with the full cup.
Dropping the handkerchief onto her lap, Ena put her hands around the hot drink to warm them. She had cried so much that she had exhausted herself and was shivering. Although the buffet was warm from so many bodies seated in such a small area, Ena felt cold. She ought to put her coat on, but just the thought of standing up and doing so exhausted her more. She took a sip of tea and felt better for it. ‘Thank you,’ she said, making a conscious effort to pull herself together.
‘You’re welcome, miss.’
Ena looked in her handbag again. This time for her purse. Taking it out, she opened it and offered the man a half-crown. ‘For my tea.’
‘There’s no need,’ he said, ‘buying tea for a beautiful woman is a pleasure.’
‘I insist,’ she said. If it had been any other day, she would have been delighted to receive a compliment from such a good-looking man. She looked up at him and their eyes met. Fearing she had turned red, she said, ‘First the handkerchief, and now the tea. What next?’ she said, attempting a joke.
‘You can tell me why you were crying. I’m a good listener.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got twenty minutes until my train leaves.’
If only I could, Ena thought. ‘I’m afraid I can’t. I mean, don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Okay, let’s talk about something else. Not your English weather,’ he said. ‘There are so many things I love about England, my mom was English and I went to university here, but your weather,’ he said, shaking his head. Ena laughed. ‘What?’
‘You’re talking about the weather.’
‘I am, aren’t I? He laughed too. ‘I’m Ben, by the way. Benjamin Franklin Johnson. Named after my country’s most famous founding father, Benjamin Franklin.’ He offered Ena his hand.
‘You have a lot to live up to,’ Ena said, taking Ben’s hand and shaking it. ‘Ena Dudley. Pleased to meet you.’
‘Hi, Ena.’
‘If you were named after Benjamin Franklin you were obviously born in America.’
‘Yeah, Boston. But surely you could tell that from my accent.’
‘You could have been Canadian.’
‘I guess.’ Ben laughed. ‘Don’t ever ask a Canadian if he’s an American. The guys I work with don’t like being mistaken for us Yanks. Though we’re not that different from them.’ Ben looked at Ena for a moment and smiled. ‘Maybe one day when the war’s over, you’ll visit the US. It’s a great country.’
‘It’s a large continent.’
Ben sat back in his seat, his eyes wide with surprise.
Ena laughed despite herself. ‘Don’t
