All the Sweet Promises. Elizabeth Elgin
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known what to expect that night. All she was able to see from the back of the truck was the rounded outlines of scattered Nissen huts and, on the dark horizon, tall, wedge-shaped buildings hung with dim blue lights.
A corporal wearing an SP’s armband helped her down, and from the distance she sensed the clunk and slap of a double bass and drums that tapped out a rumba beat.
On either side, white-painted kerb stones glowed faintly through the blackness as she walked with the rest towards the sound of the dancing, for ears were of more use than eyes in the blackout.
The aircrew mess was a drab building, erected in the haste of war, with a brown polished floor and girders that criss-crossed to support a low tin roof. Thick blackout curtains covered the too-small windows and cigarette smoke hung in a blue haze, drifting lazily, trapped in the roof space above.
The room was noisy and hot. She laid her coat across a table then stood, not knowing what to do, wondering irritably why she had made such a fuss about coming …
But thank heaven she had, she thought now. Oh, Rob, imagine. We might never have met.
Her foot began to tingle and she shifted her position. Her father was still in the garden. He was wearing his blue police shirt and the strap of his truncheon hung from his left trouser pocket. The war had brought extra responsibilities to the village constable and now they were beginning to show in the tired lines on his face.
She wished her father and mother were like other parents and not so narrow-minded. But they were old. Her mother must be nearly sixty.
‘We waited so long for you, Jane. We had given up hope, then suddenly there you were, a little stranger …’
A little stranger. God, how awful. And how awful to imagine people of their age doing that. It made her glad she was disobeying them; gladder still that she and Rob were lovers.
All seemed normal and quiet at the aerodrome and the sun was beginning to set. She lifted her left hand. Almost nine o’clock.
‘… if something doesn’t happen by nine …’
The cough and splutter of an aircraft engine came to her clearly on the still evening air. Fear sliced through her and she tried to close her ears to the sound, but as if to mock her it was joined by another and another until the air was filled with a shaking roar. The pilots were revving up the aircraft engines; there would be no stand-down. Soon, Rob would take S-Sugar on to the runway and wait for clearance from the control tower. Then a green light would stab through the gloom and he’d be roaring down the narrow concrete strip, faster and faster, holding Sugar back until it seemed the boundary fence was hurtling to meet them. Then slowly, reluctantly almost, they would rise into the air and Rob would let go his breath, and his flight engineer would say, ‘Bloody lovely,’ as he always did.
That was when she’d wish them luck, as they roared over the village, and she would watch them all until they were silhouetted against the dying sun, small and graceful in an apricot sky.
She counted twelve green lights, blessed twelve Halifax bombers on their way. In less than half an hour they were all airborne and Rob was flying on his seventeenth raid over occupied Europe.
Take care, my love. Come home safely.
God, but she was so afraid.
At the door of St Joseph’s church, Father O’Flaherty waited impatiently and importantly.
‘Down ye go, Theresa.’ He always used Vi’s second name, declaring that the name of a flower, however sweet and modest, must give precedence to that of a saint.
‘Thanks, Father.’
Vi walked carefully, eyes on the trailing habit of Sister Cecilia, who negotiated the twisting downward steps with a child beneath each arm.
The crypt was damp and smelled of the occupation of the past six nights. Benches and chairs had been placed around the walls, and biscuit mattresses, still folded, were stacked in the corner nearest the stone steps. Not for sleeping on, it was stressed, but for direst emergencies only, such as dying, birthing or suspected heart attack. Opposite, alongside a loudly dripping tap, Sister Annunciata topped up the already bubbling tea urn, switched on, Vi suspected, without the priest’s permission.
Vi took a corner seat farthest away from the door. Tonight she didn’t want to talk. Tonight Gerry had died, really died. After the letter came she had hoped for a miracle and prayed for one, too, but Richie Daly’s visit had snuffed out that hope in one short sentence. Gerry was dead, because no seaman, not even a little toerag like Richie Daly, would lie about a thing like that.
She closed her eyes. No more tears, Vi, she told herself. You and Gerry had four good years. Just be thankful you didn’t get the baby you wanted so much. No fun for a kid, is it, growing up without a da. Better face it, Vi, you’re on your own, now. There’s only Mary and the sisters you haven’t seen for ten years, if you can count them. Margaret and Geraldine had gone to Canada as domestics in the early thirties and married Canadian husbands, and wouldn’t come back to Liverpool, they wrote, for a big clock.
They’d been good to Mam, though, sending her money when they could. Neither had been able to get home for her funeral, but they had telegraphed a big wreath and paid their fair share of the undertaker’s bill, after which the letters and dollars stopped and Vi and Mary had grown even closer.
A child cried and was silenced with a bottle of orange-coloured liquid. Lips moved without words, fingers counted rosary beads. Tonight, everyone seemed to be waiting. Two hours gone and still nothing had happened. Weren’t they coming, then, and if they weren’t, why didn’t the all clear sound?
Sister Annunciata caught the priest’s eye and held up a packet of tea, but he shook his head and pulled aside the blackout curtain at the foot of the circular staircase. Vi jumped to her feet and followed him to the door of the church, wincing in the sweet, cold air.
‘Father, can you spare a minute?’
‘What’s to do, Theresa? Go back down, where it’s safe.’
‘Just a word, Father.’
She followed his upward gaze. The sky was dark, with only the outlines of dockside warehouses standing sharp on the skyline. Long, straight fingers of light searched the sky in sweeping arcs, meeting, touching briefly as if in greeting, then sweeping away again to circle the brooding night.
‘Almost beautiful, isn’t it?’
‘It is, Father.’
‘And what’s on your conscience, Theresa?’ The priest’s eyes followed the wandering searchlights.
‘It’s Gerry. He – he’s dead, it seems certain now. Someone who was there came to tell me tonight.’
‘Dead-is-it-God-rest-his-soul.’ Father O’Flaherty’s thumb traced a blessing.
‘Will you say a Mass for him?’ Two half-crowns, warm from her fingers, changed hands. ‘Tomorrow, Father?’
‘I’ll do that, Theresa, and I’ll pray for you, child. Now go back down and tell the Sisters to make tea. It’s too quiet up here. Too bloody quiet by half, so it is …’
She said, ‘Thank you, Father,’ and began the uneasy descent. It was always worse going down, and spiral stairs were the very devil in the dark if you had big feet. It meant you had to walk sideways, almost, like a crab. Vi wished the good Lord had endowed her with size fours, but it wasn’t anybody’s fault, really. Her feet were big because she hadn’t worn shoes till her third birthday, or so Mam had said.
She stood for a moment behind the thick black curtain, unwilling to pull it aside. Added to the musty crypt smell there would be the stink of sweat and unchanged babies, all mingling with the stench of fear, because tonight everyone