Elizabeth Elgin - Windflower Wedding

‘The air gunner is blind. Did Aunt Emily tell you?’

‘She did.’ Tatiana drew in her breath sharply. Tim had been an air gunner. ‘But he’ll like the music, even though he won’t be able to …’ Her voice trailed off, because it was awful enough having your face burned beyond recognition; to lose your sight as well must make you want to rage against the injustice of it.

‘The music will be an extra bonus,’ Joannie said. ‘Just going out on the town will be really something. It’s his first time out since – since it happened. You’ll have to play it by ear. You realize that, don’t you?’

‘I do. What’s his name?’

‘Bill Benson. How’s Aunt Emily, by the way?’

‘She’s fine. Sent her love. Joannie – just how old is she? I’ve asked, but she won’t tell.’

‘So have I and got one of her looks for it. But it’s my guess she’s nearer eighty than seventy.’

‘She’s a love. She bullies me, you know.’

‘I do know, but it’s really affection. She’s got to have someone to love. Here are the tickets.’ She handed over a re-used envelope, stuck down with an economy label. ‘They’re good seats. You’re to meet the chaps outside the theatre.’

‘The Adelphi, isn’t it? I’m looking forward to it. How are they to get back afterwards?’

‘There’ll be transport provided. There are quite a few lads out on the town tonight so wait with yours, can you, till a driver comes to pick them up?’

She said of course she would and that she knew which line to use on the Underground and where to get off. She was getting to be quite a Londoner.

‘One last thing, Tatiana. If there’s an alert, I think it would be best if you got them to the nearest Underground – then stay with them, till the all clear.’

‘I’ll look after them.’ There were fewer air raids on London since Hitler had invaded Russia. Very few people left a cinema when ‘Air-Raid Warning’ was flashed on the screen now. Usually it was only air-raid wardens, ambulance drivers and fire fighters who left to report to their nearest centre; just as Uncle Igor did. It was the same in the theatres. Someone – usually a pretty girl – stood at the side of the stage holding up a notice to the same effect.

But Londoners were getting blasé about the Luftwaffe. They had paid their money and were staying to see a show! It was as simple as that. And London was a big place, they usually reasoned; the bombs would probably drop miles away!

‘I’ll take them if they want to go,’ Tatiana smiled. ‘But best be off. Don’t want to keep the RAF waiting!’

She wouldn’t, she was to think afterwards, have been so eager had she known what would be there outside the Adelphi Theatre to greet her.

‘This is Bill,’ Sam said. ‘Sergeant Bill Benson.’ Which would have been all right, Tatiana thought when she had got the better of the cold, cruel pain that sliced through her, had he not turned, his hand searching for hers, and spoken to her with Tim’s soft way of speaking; had he not had a shock of fair hair like Tim’s, nor the wing of an air-gunner above his left tunic pocket.

Tim come back to her, his beautiful face burned beyond recognition; Tim, wearing dark glasses over sightless eyes. Not smiling, because to smile she knew to be difficult. But the hand she grasped was Tim Thomson’s hand and the voice that said, ‘Tatiana. Nice to meet you,’ was Tim’s voice. Even his height belonged to a sergeant air-gunner she had not seen for a few days short of a year.

She clasped the hand in hers, said, ‘Nice to meet you, too, Bill,’ then covered that hand with her free one and closed her eyes and whispered silently inside her, ‘God! How could you do this to me? How could you?’

‘We’re in good time.’ Sam speaking. ‘What say we find the bar and sink a crafty half?’

‘A crafty half it is!’ said a voice not a bit like Tatiana Sutton’s. Then she pulled Bill Benson’s arm into the crook of her own. ‘That okay with you, Bill?’

And he said it was and asked her to tell him – quietly, if she wouldn’t mind – when there was a step up or down; otherwise he could manage just fine.

And Tatiana thought it was just as well one of them could manage just fine, because she couldn’t. She was light-headed and hot and cold, both at the same time. And it hurt, almost, to breathe.

‘Give me your stick,’ she heard herself saying, ‘and you, Sam, walk on the other side. Relax, Bill. We’ve got you.’

Yet all the time she was shaking inside her. And her mouth had gone dry and it was hard, even, to think; think about getting Bill Benson up and down steps and stairs, that was, and fixing him up with a beer; finding a corner of the noisy, heaving bar where he could manage to drink it without being pushed or elbowed.

‘What are you drinking, Bill?’ Sam had asked when they had found a place to stand.

‘Heavy, please.’ There was no smile on his tight, rough lips, but there was a smile in his voice.

‘That’s bitter, in Sassenach,’ she heard herself explaining to Sam. ‘And I’ll have a glass of light, please, if that’s okay?’

‘You know your Scottish ales,’ Bill said with Tim’s voice.

And she took a deep breath and said, ‘But of course, hen.’

She hadn’t meant to be flippant, had not meant to use one of Tim’s words because Tim had often called her hen. And you shouldn’t be flippant, should you, when nothing about and around you was real; when all you could be sure of was the voice that wept inside you?

God! Why did you do this? Why did you take Tim away from me then send Bill Benson into my life?

Because Bill was Tim and Tim was Bill. Only sightless eyes and a cruelly burned face disguised them.

She found herself wondering if Bill liked to dance, only to hear a ragged voice whispering in her ear: It doesn’t matter if Bill Benson dances or not. He isn’t Tim. Tim is dead! He will never come back; you know he won’t.

She was grateful that Sam returned at that moment, carrying three glasses on a tin tray.

‘Y’know, Tatiana – there’s one good thing about being a wounded hero! You get served first!’

She took a glass, then said, ‘Bill,’ and he turned in the direction of her voice. ‘Your drink …’

He held out his hand and she arranged his fingers round the glass, then said, ‘Cheers!’ even though his hands had not been burned and could have almost been the hands that once touched and gentled her body.

Did you hear me, God? Why …?

Keth tapped on the door and pushed it open.

‘Hullo, sir. Come for your homework?’ asked the pleasant-faced ATS corporal.

‘Please. But tell me, Corporal, why are all the army girls around here sergeants but you?’

He felt pleased that his voice sounded so normal.

‘Because I’m not old enough. You have to be twenty-one in this setup. Only three months to wait!’

She looked very young; certainly not twenty and three-quarters. He wondered how much she knew; how far she was trusted, until she turned the dial on the safe to the left and right, then handed him a folder marked ‘237’.

‘This is yours, Captain. Will you sign for it, please?’ There was a docket stapled to the front of it and she wrote the date, the day and the time on it then offered it for his signature. ‘And will you sign the office copy, too?’

‘You look very young to be working in a setup like this.’ Keth initialled the second copy. ‘Do you find it a strain?’

‘No, sir. My own choice entirely. I wanted, initially, to be sent out into the field, but –’

‘Work for SOE, you mean? An agent?’

‘I work for SOE now,’ she smiled. ‘But yes, one day I’d like to go to France.’