She grinned at the clumsy way in which he had melded his words with the song lyrics. Very corny. Closing her eyes, she drifted back into his arms. The song played inside her head, just as crisply and flawlessly as it had done those days at the dance in Hawkinge and in Captain Caruana’s in Valletta, lulling her into a contented sleep.
She opened her eyes several hours later, sweating and slightly breathless. Beside her on the pillow was Woody’s crumpled airgraph. Her dreams, as was their habit of late, had effortlessly blended snatches of reality with disturbing quantities of some fabricated alternative world where Laurie had returned, retrieved her wedding ring from the old Maltese woman and was now holding her captive as a prisoner-of-war. It was laughable and yet it served to emphasise the reality of her situation. Could she ever really have a future with Woody?
She sat up, feeling the burn of guilt in her heart. She dug her fingers in a rib gully above her left breast, trying to ease the burning sensation beneath it.
Maudling and dreaming; she was doing more and more of it lately. It was time to snap out of it and get ready.
She ventured over to the wardrobe and pulled it open. The choice of attire for the evening was dismal and depressing. A utility outfit—purchased last month with clothing coupons—that resembled something her mother might have worn, or a pastel blue dress and cartwheel hat that had seen much better days. Or she could just remain in uniform. These days, all she seemed to do was rotate between her nightie and her WAAF uniform. She had almost forgotten what it was like to have a choice between several outfits. Obviously, she selected the pastel blue dress; last worn when, exactly? She had no idea. Months ago.
She pulled on a pair of brand new silk stockings that she had been saving for a special occasion, feeling bizarrely guilty that she was preparing for a night of fun whilst her comrades faced an intense night supporting Operation Husky. It seemed frivolous, to say the least. Yet she continued getting ready. She pulled on the dress, styled her hair and applied what little make up she had left. Lastly, she pulled on a pair of white gloves.
She tipped her hat to an angle and pouted in the mirror, vaguely satisfied with the woman looking back at her.
Elsie glanced at her bedside clock: bang on time to meet Violet outside the station gates. She left her room and took her time to descend the stairs and leave the Mess building. A slight quiver of nervousness rumbled in her tummy. It had been three months since she had last seen Violet and even then, it had been fleeting when Elsie had been sent to train WAAF operators for a few days at West Kingsdown. Since then, they had both struggled to arrange simultaneous leave.
Violet was leaning on one of the stone pillars that guarded the entrance to the station. Elsie spotted her way back. She was smoking and, judging by her body language, flirting with the two army guards. Violet half-turned then did a double-take and deserted the guards, running full-pelt towards her.
‘Elsie Finch!’ Violet cried, squeezing her tightly. ‘Or is it Air Marshal Finch, now?’
Elsie laughed. ‘Squadron Officer Finch, actually.’
‘Well, you look amazing, Squadron Officer Finch,’ she declared, looking her up and down.
‘Says the woman wearing a film star’s wardrobe. Where do you get these outfits?’
‘This old thing?’ Violet did an impeccable twirl, much to the admiration of her two male onlookers. She was wearing a floor-length dark-red gown, her hair freshly rolled and styled in ringlets that fell perfectly over her bare shoulders.
Elsie reached for her hand. ‘Come on, we’ve got a tube to catch.’
They took the Bakerloo tube into central London, arriving at the Elephant and Castle in just under an hour.
‘Golly,’ Elsie remarked, as they stepped out of the station. London was as it had always been, bustling with shoppers, street vendors, cars and buses. Only the surrounding buildings betrayed the façade of normality; the majority were merely skeletal carcasses with no windows or doors, no life inside them. Others were boarded up. Of some, there was now no trace, their having been blasted apart and swept into history. Just a lucky few stood timidly among the desolation.
‘Awful, isn’t it?’ Violet commented. ‘The worst raid of the war flattened the area. Tenth of May forty-one. They were targeting the railway lines. More than a thousand people were killed. Five hundred bombers...’
Violet continued explaining the damage around them, but Elsie had stopped listening when she had told her the date. The tenth of May 1941; the night that she had given birth. It was one of those oddities of war…of life, she supposed; she had brought a life into the world, whilst others were being so cruelly taken away.
‘Are you okay?’ Violet asked.
‘Yes, sorry, I think hearing that date mentioned will forever make my heart miss a beat.’
It took a moment for Violet to understand. ‘Oh, sorry, Elsie.’ She placed her arm over her shoulder. ‘It must be jolly hard for you.’
‘I think about her most days—wonder what she’s doing, what she looks like now.’
‘You sound like you regret giving her up,’ Violet said.
Violet’s words struck
