Terri Nixon - Kitty’s War

‘Where did you get this?’

‘It was a present,’ Belinda said, and winked. I found myself smiling, although I wasn’t really sure why, except I liked spending time with her; she made things seem like fun, and it was about time I had some of that again. I began to hum a little tune: Billy Murray’s popular song from last year, ‘Pretty Baby’, and Bel picked up on it and joined in. Ordinarily I didn’t like the song, although it was constantly in my head, but Bel kept getting the words wrong which made me laugh, and then she started to change them deliberately, just to make me laugh again. Soon we were singing quite loudly: she pausing to inhale more of that revolting smoke, me to swallow more of the delicious wine, and then she stubbed out the last of her gasper on the bottom of her shoe, and stood up.

‘Let’s dance!’

So, as the sun faded, and while we were supposed to be clearing the barn of last year’s damp grain sacks, Bel and I held hands and danced; the wine was fizzing in my blood now, and I kept stumbling over my own feet, making Bel laugh harder.

‘You’d better sit down, Skittles,’ she said. The nickname cut through the pleasant haze, and I stopped dancing.

‘Why did you call me that?’

‘It’s what Evie and the others call you, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise it was reserved for your war chums,’ Bel said, a little tightly, and I felt silly for my reaction; it had been in another life that I had found that name, and that life was gone now.

‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘You can call me that too.’ As long as you don’t call me Kittlington…

The thought came out of nowhere, and was accompanied by a real pang. I heard the name spoken in Archie Buchanan’s soft, Scots-accented voice, and although I’d known that voice since I’d been a child, it had, for at least three years now, had the power to reach into my heart and warm me right through.

‘Come on,’ Bel said, her good humour returning as swiftly as ever. ‘I thought we were dancing!’

I hadn’t planned on opening up, to her of all people, but she saw my face, and led me back to the boxes where we’d been sitting before. The wood felt cold now, through the threadbare corduroy of my trousers, but it didn’t matter. I picked up the wine again and took a long gulp. Bel still held my other hand, and she gave it a squeeze.

‘I understand,’ she said. ‘Your handsome captain has gone.’

‘He’s not mine,’ I said, removing my hand from hers and wiping my mouth on my sleeve. This time last year I had prayed for Archie to see me as a woman, as if I could throw a switch in his head that would make him blink, look at me properly, and realise I was more than his friend’s little sister. That stupid Billy Murray song had mocked me at every turn. I spoke the words again now, with a bitter tinge to my voice:

‘You’re just a baby to me.

Your cunning little dimples and your baby stare,

Your baby talk and baby walk and curly hair—’

‘Well you do have curly hair,’ Bel pointed out. ‘Although you don’t really talk like a baby, and…anyway, babies can’t walk, can they?’

I raised the bottle in acknowledgement of her logic. ‘It’s no longer the issue in any case,’ I said, and took another drink. I would give anything now just to be ‘Oli’s little sister’. ‘It’s more than that now; you know that.’ My voice sounded as if it came from a long way away. Another time, even.

Bel nodded, her face solemn. ‘I know, darling, but—’

‘And I can’t change what happened, so what’s the use?’ I didn’t want to talk about Archie any more; it hurt too much. ‘Anyway, he’s gone.’

‘Back to the war, the big hero,’ Bel said, and lit another cigarette. We sat quietly for a little while, I don’t know what Belinda was thinking about, but my mind was, as usual, on Archie and his marriage proposal.

Archie had, on the last day of his last, too-short leave, taken me to one side and said what I had desperately longed, for three years, to hear him say. Feeling his big, warm hands grasp mine as his feelings tumbled into the empty air between us, I realised I had no idea how I was going to respond, and when I at last opened my mouth, it was with utter dismay that I heard my own words and knew them to be the truth.

‘I’m sorry, but no.’

Chapter Two

West Derby, Merseyside, September 1914

Oliver was at the window again, impatience leaking from every pore. He was beginning to tug at my nerves and, older brother or not, I was just about to tell him to sit down, when he gave a pleased exclamation and left the room. I peered out of the window but our overnight guest had already mounted the steps, and all I could see was a dark-clad shoulder as he waited by the front door, and a suitcase sitting on the step just behind.

Not having seen Archie Buchanan for nearly four years, I tried to remember what he looked like but could only come up with ‘tall’. I had a clear memory of a Scottish accent though, warm and friendly, and that memory was attached to the vague outline of someone who had already reached adulthood and left me behind. I remembered he’d been very gentle, easy to talk to, and had always included me in conversations and day trips when he could, even though Oli had tried to persuade him I was too little to bother with. I’d crossly reminded Oli one day, that he himself was only two years older than me, and a good six years younger than Archie.

‘Ah, but when two chaps are on the rugger field together, they depend on each other. There’s a tight bond.’ He demonstrated by linking his two hands together. ‘Unbreakable.’

I’d rolled my eyes, as all good little sisters do, but enjoyed the fact of their unlikely friendship, as Archie began to spend more and more of his school holidays with us. We’d borrow ponies from friends of my father’s, but although Oli could ride, he had little interest and it would often end up as just Archie and me. He seemed to spend most of his home life outdoors, and it had been easy to see that was where he was most comfortable. We’d both missed him when he left school and returned to Scotland, but his image had faded quickly and all I could recall now was the enjoyment I’d found in his company.

I smoothed down my new dress and stepped back from the window, steeling myself to play the perfect hostess, and relieved my lessons were being put to the test before an old friend, who would be too preoccupied catching up with Oli to notice my shortcomings as a well-bred young lady. Knowing Archie, if he did notice them he would only wink and make some joke to put me at my ease.

As I was forcing my unwilling body into a posture of elegant welcome— Shoulders back, Katherine, chin up. Up!— Oli marched back in, beaming. Behind him came Archie Buchanan, and the ready, familiar smile I’d prepared suddenly felt as if it sat on someone else’s face. My expression must have looked frozen, but in truth I had no more control over it than I had over my suddenly hammering pulse. Had I forgotten, or was it just that I’d never noticed, the beauty of those bold, strong features? The eyes of multi-toned greys that swirled and shifted with the late afternoon light from the window? The breadth of shoulder that gave his considerable height the perfect balance?

I had been twelve, I reminded myself. A child. But I wasn’t twelve any longer, and the emerging woman in me felt a new, tingling sensation low in my stomach as Archie smiled at me and, ignoring my politely outstretched hand, took me into a hug instead. His suit was speckled with light drops of rain and I felt the little cold spots on my cheek, but more immediate was the press of his hands on my back, and the low murmur as he greeted me with the familiar words, ‘Well, well, if it isn’t young Kittlington.’