Elsie sat down on the grass bank, took a bite of her sandwich and watched as Susie flattened herself out and thrust her head backwards towards the sun, gently puffing grey haloes of smoke into the air above her, looking like she didn’t have a single worry in the world. As Elsie watched her, she thought of the warning that her boyfriend had given her three days ago. Since that day, Elsie had been trying to find an opportunity to speak alone with Susie. Finally, one had now presented itself.
‘What does your boyfriend fly?’ Elsie asked.
‘Hurricanes, mainly,’ Susie answered, with a proud smile. ‘One of the squadron’s best, by all accounts.’
‘He seems nice,’ Elsie said.
‘He is.’
‘I’ve only spoken to him once, mind you. He said something a bit peculiar.’
Susie sat up, looking puzzled, and raised a hand into the air to act as a sun shield. ‘Oh?’
‘He asked if I was staying up at Cliff House and when I told him that I was, he told me to be careful.’
Susie laughed—but there was a moment’s pause first and the delay betrayed her—Elsie had seen the flash of a knowledge deeper than that to which she was about to admit. ‘It’s just Daniel worrying about you—a single girl all alone when the rest of us girls are shacked up together.’ She waved her hand dismissively, took a mouthful of sandwich and laid back down. ‘Delicious,’ she said.
Elsie eyed her suspiciously. The sandwiches were never delicious. They were pappy, bland, rationed.
They ate and drank under the continual drone of the siren until Susie sat up and spoke again. ‘How do you cope, Elsie?’
‘Cope with what?’
‘Life,’ Susie clarified, ‘I mean now that you’re a widow. How do you cope without him? I don’t mean practically; I mean inside.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve not known Daniel all that long but he’s like a part of me now—a real, functioning part of me—like an extra limb or organ. I’m sure my body couldn’t go on without him.’ She held her left hand aloft, fingers splayed. ‘I can’t wait for the day when I become Mrs Daniel Winter.’
‘It’s different for me,’ Elsie began, trying to find the words to explain. ‘Laurie and I—we never had that…we were never like that.’
‘What do you mean? You never had the feeling that you wanted to spend every minute of every day with him and when you’re apart you feel like you might burst?’
Elsie shook her head. ‘At the start, maybe. Then he changed—he wasn’t the man that I thought he was.’
‘Then why did you marry him?’
Elsie shrugged. It was a question that she had asked herself many times over, but now it felt callous to even think it. She was glad, really, that Laurie had experienced a fleeting glance of marriage before he had died. ‘It all happened so quickly and I didn’t get a great deal of say in the matter; it was almost all arranged between Laurie and my dad—they worked together, you see and my father only saw one side to him.’
‘Christ!’ Susie exclaimed. ‘But look at you, Sergeant Finch—you’re the last girl I would have taken for a pushover.’
Elsie smiled, choosing to skew Susie’s statement as a compliment. ‘I changed, a little.’
Susie laughed. ‘As little as a caterpillar changing into a butterfly.’
Elsie grinned, liking that analogy of herself.
With a yawn, Susie declared herself ready for bed. ‘I’ve got to get my beauty sleep ready for the dance tonight. You should come.’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Elsie said. ‘It wouldn’t be right.’
Susie shrugged, leapt up, planted a kiss on top of Elsie’s head and picked up her bicycle. ‘Well, it’s up to you—I don’t think it’s a problem. For now, I bid you good day, Sergeant.’
Elsie did a mock salute. ‘Good day, ma’am.’ She watched Susie all the way until she disappeared at the end of the road, then she mounted her bicycle, shouted a goodbye to Annie and began down the lane beside the aerodrome.
Elsie cycled slowly, allowing the bicycle to glide as she enjoyed the warmth of the sun on the nape of her neck. Her sun-baked thoughts were directed at just one thing: Susie and Daniel. She tried to replay both the conversations in her mind but the elapsed time had since erased small pieces and filed away at the firm edges of her certainty. Had she really seen the glint of indecision in Susie’s eyes just then, as she had considered her answer? Was Daniel’s warning as simple as Susie had suggested? That he was just worried about her living arrangements? Doubt had crept in, but not enough to completely counter her instincts.
In the brief trough of quiet before the next drone of the siren, Elsie caught the sound of shouting. She applied the brake and glanced about her. At first, her eyes passed over the aerodrome fence, but then something caught her eye and she turned back to see William Smith, waving like a lunatic with a big inane grin. She couldn’t help but smile at his impish face. He beckoned her over. He was dressed ready to fly with his helmet on his head and a bright yellow life-jacket on. At the fence, she noticed other pilots sitting outside their dispersal hut, also prepared to fly.
‘What can I do for you, Pilot Officer Smith?’ Elsie asked aloofly.
‘Say yes?’ he said, feigning a peculiar sadness. His thin fingers clung to the wire fence, giving him the impression of being a specimen in a zoo.
‘Say yes to what?’ Elsie asked.
‘To accompanying me to the RAF dance tonight at the village hall. If I make
