Chapter 21 Lilias #2
Lilias shook her head, imagining Harry in some damp dugout all kitted out and ready to go over the top, focussing on the rainbow colours of a long-lost seashell.
It was a very moving image. “Not at all, no. One has to escape somehow. When I was driving ambulances, I used to imagine home; our wildflower meadow, or the hens in their run, almost as if I were painting a picture, I suppose.”
“S’pose you were really, just in your mind.”
She smiled, feeling a warm glow of happiness at being understood. “Yes, quite,” she said, then quickly felt guilty about feeling anything approaching happiness while Ruth was so distraught, and Harry was about to go and fight.
“I got a bit of a reputation for being moody, I think, with the lads,” Harry continued, instantly making her forget about her self-chastisement.
“Did you? Why?”
She sensed his shrug. “Because I chopped and changed so much, I think. Sometimes I’d be larking about, all jokes and banter, and other times, when it all got a bit much, I’d have to go off somewhere in my mind, some place still and quiet.
I think the boys took it to mean I was yellow when I got all silent. ”
“But they must have been scared, too, surely?”
“’Course they were. We all were. But my memories really helped me.”
The moon came out from behind a cloud, illuminating Harry’s face, and Lilias thought, as she’d so often done before, that there was something very special about him.
“Your ability to distance and calm yourself like that might have played a part in saving you,” she suggested gently.
“That and a slice of good luck, yes,” he agreed.
“Though it didn’t always feel lucky, surviving.
Not when your mates were getting blown to kingdom come around you and you knew full well you were going to have to do it all over again the very next day.
” He broke off. “Sorry, I’m being maudlin, aren’t I? ”
“Not at all. It’s natural for your thoughts to return to those things when . . . when you’re about to serve your king and country once again.” As she spoke, Lilias was completely failing to keep the emotion from her voice, and Harry looked at her, misinterpreting it.
“It was a big thing for you, too, driving those ambulances, seeing the sights you saw. Is this enough for you now, keeping tabs on my boy?”
She didn’t want the focus of the conversation to turn to her, not when he was about to face so much.
What did she have to worry about, after all?
Ruth, at the moment, obviously, but her sister would come through this tragedy in time.
As grief stricken as Ruth was, Lilias couldn’t imagine her doing herself any harm.
Not beyond drinking herself silly and making some unwise decisions, anyway.
“David and boys like him are our future, so, yes, it’s enough for me.
Although . . . taking care of David is such a pleasure, I do sometimes feel a little guilty.
I’m not sure one’s war effort ought to be so pleasurable.
It doesn’t feel quite right.” She attempted a laugh, but it wobbled, and there didn’t seem to be a damned thing she could do to stop it.
She would have liked to have sat down right where she was on the path, in fact, to howl, the thought of Harry out there in the conflict was so torturous.
And yet, somehow, she managed to collect herself sufficiently to ask him, “Where . . . where will they send you, do you think?”
“Training camp to begin with, to get knocked into shape.” He laughed briefly. “Need it, too, don’t I? I’m out of breath hurrying along like this, never mind with a gun and a heavy pack on my back.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said right away. “D’you want me to slow down?”
He laughed again. “No. Like I said, I need to get fit. And we need to find your sister. See she’s all right.” He looked at her. “Has anybody ever told you, you have the most glorious hair?”
Her heart beat faster. “As a child, I was always teased about it. Called Ginger or Ginger Nut.”
“What do children know?” he said. “You’re gorgeous.”
“So are you,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
And there it was: their attraction for each other, out in the open. Lilias knew she ought to feel bad about it, but when Harry reached out to take her hand, she just couldn’t feel anything but thrilled.
They saw Ruth immediately when they entered the air-base dance hall. She was holding court with a group of airmen, speaking loudly about something, the centre of attention with her auburn hair and her emerald-green dress.
“She looks like a movie star in that dress,” Harry said.
“Yes. At least to those boys, anyway.” It was a relief to see that Ruth was okay; at least for now, but as they made their way over, some of Lilias’s concern for her sister returned, for she sounded as brittle and as vulnerable as a dry twig, and it was obvious to Lilias that she was acting as if her life depended upon it.
“Oh, I say, boys,” she said, spotting Lilias and Harry, “it’s my sister. I daresay she’s come to drag me back to hideous reality. Someone whisk me onto the dance floor pronto!”
At least half a dozen volunteers promptly stepped forward, and Ruth took the nearest—and most handsome one—by the hand and disappeared into the dancing throng.
Lilias sighed. “I imagine there will be tears before bedtime.”
They stood, side by side, Harry the only man in the entire hall not in uniform, catching occasional glimpses of Ruth’s emerald dress through the crush as she danced with her officer.
Nobody here, Lilias decided, would have any idea that her sister had just lost the love of her life, or that this love had been another woman.
“Shall we hang up our coats and get ourselves some drinks?” Harry suggested. “We may as well enjoy ourselves now we’re here.”
Lilias was only too grateful to allow Harry to take charge. “Yes, let’s.”
They made their way to the cloakroom, where Lilias took off her coat and hat and gave them to Harry to deal with, smoothing down her dress and feeling glad, for once, not to be dressed in the trousers she wore to clean the chicken run.
Her moss-green dress might be ancient, and hardly designed for evening wear, but she had always been very fond of it.
Their coats and hats dealt with, Harry and Lilias went over to the bar. “What’ll you have?” asked Harry, and she settled for a whisky, because the worry about her sister and the walk through the cool evening air had chilled her.
When the drinks came, they clinked glasses, and Lilias smiled, whereupon Harry promptly put his own glass down to take her hand.
“Come on,” he said. “This music’s too good to waste.
” And although Lilias knew she ought to refuse, bearing in mind the way she felt about him, she also knew she would not.
She’d always loved to dance, and opportunities to do so were so few and far between these days.
Besides, this was Harry, asking her to dance.
“I’m a little rusty,” she shouted over the music as he placed his hand on the small of her back.
“Me too,” he shouted back, steering her into the throng of dancers. “We’ll groan and creak together.”
Dancing with Harry was pure bliss. Despite what he’d said, he was an excellent dancer, and as her own body remembered just what to do, the pure pleasure of the dance was intoxicating, turning away all thoughts of him dancing, on other occasions, with Nadine.
How wonderful it was to abandon herself; to surrender herself to sensation and feelings, not thoughts.
To simply exist and be, absolutely in the moment.
What a very rare thing that was these days.
The light of Harry’s smile, the embrace of upbeat music, her body free to express itself as if there were no cares anywhere in the world. A feeling of total completeness.
But then, before Lilias’s eyes, Ruth seemed to crumple across the room, time seeming to stand still as Lilias caught sight of her slow collapse to the floor, her mouth open in an ugly, inaudible wail, her beautiful features marred by what must be great gulping sobs.
“Ruth!” Lilias said, breaking free from Harry’s arms and pushing her way through the crowd to get to her side.
Ruth’s dance partner had stepped back and was now gazing at Ruth in horror.
“I didn’t do anything, I swear,” he said, but Lilias didn’t have time to reassure him.
She had to get Ruth away before the band got to the end of the song and her wailing became audible to everyone in the room, not just the couples closest to her. She had to spare Ruth that humiliation.
“Come on, darling,” she coaxed. “Let’s go outside.”
But Ruth could not, or would not move, so Harry stepped in, putting a strong arm around her, and half carried, half dragged her through the jostling dancers and out to the lobby.
“I’ll get our coats,” Lilias said. “Ruthie, darling, did you bring a coat?”
But Ruth was incapable of answering, so Lilias hurried off, anyway, grateful to spot Ruth’s shimmering wrap hanging from a peg.
With a mixture of confident authority and a tale—which wasn’t such a tale after all—of a family emergency, Lilias managed to retrieve the wrap without a cloakroom ticket and hurried back to the lobby with Harry’s coat over her arm, her own coat hastily dragged on, its trailing belt dragging through beer slops on the bar floor.
Finally she reached the lobby, only to find it was empty, so she went on outside and found Harry holding Ruth in his arms to comfort her. Supported by Harry, she was sobbing brokenheartedly, shudders of despair travelling the length of her body.
“Here,” said Lilias, shrugging her coat off again. “Put this on, darling. You’re cold.” And, together, she and Harry helped Ruth into the coat, dressing her like a helplessly tired child, with Lilias attempting to keep herself warm with Ruth’s beautiful—but quite ineffectual—wrap.
“Here; take my coat,” Harry told her, handing it back to her.