LITMIR.BIZ

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but she closed the carved oak door behind her with a thankful sigh. Sometimes she almost envied Vera those histrionic sobs, lace handkerchief delicately applied to her face without smudging her make-up. Vera always seemed so completely revived afterwards—a release which tonight Victoria needed as never before. But still she didn’t cry.

      She walked through the hall and up the grandiose staircase. She would go to the place where she always had to be when unhappy, her sanctum at the very top of the house. She passed the door of her parents’ bedroom and the storeroom that had once been her nursery. On the next floor, she passed the maid’s room, empty now that they no longer had living-in servants. She passed the locked door of her brother’s room and the doors of the toy cupboard, their pasted-on flower pictures now faded and falling.

      From the top corridor window she looked down at the dark garden and the tennis court, covered for winter. She couldn’t get used to the emptiness of the house and found herself listening for her mother’s voice or her father’s clumsy cello playing.

      Thankfully she went into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. Here at least she could be herself. A pretty row of dolls eyed her from the chest of drawers where they sat among her hairbrushes, but the balding teddy bear had fallen, and was sprawled, limbs asunder, on the floor. She picked him up before running a bath and undressing with the same studied care she gave to everything. She put her dress on its hanger and fitted trees in the battered yellow shoes before placing them in the rack.

      ‘A museum’ her mother called it derisively, but Victoria refused to let any of it go. She would keep it all—the butterfly collection in its frame on the wall, the doll’s house and her box of seabirds’ eggs. She ran her finger along the children’s books. Enid Blyton to Richmal Crompton, as well as her huge scrapbooks. She was determined to keep it all for ever, no matter how they teased her.

      She switched on the electric fire, took off the rest of her clothes, and wiped off her make-up before getting into the hot bath. Sitting in the warm, scented water, the taste of bourbon on her tongue and too much cold cream on her face, she tried to remember everything he’d said to her, searching for implications of love or rejection. The wireless was playing sweet music, but suddenly it ended and the unmistakably accented voice of the American Forces Network announcer wished all listeners a happy Christmas and victorious New Year. ‘Go to hell,’ Victoria told him, and he played more Duke Ellington.

      She was drying herself when the doorbell rang. Carol singers? Party-goers looking for another address? It rang again. She put on a dressing gown and ran downstairs. Immediately she noticed the envelope that had been pushed into the letter box. Caught by its corner, the envelope was addressed to a military box number and had been opened and emptied. She turned it over and found scribbled on the back, ‘I’m sorry, darling. Jamie.’

      She pulled the robe round her shoulders and opened the door. It was dark in the garden and raining heavily—the trees were loud with the sound. ‘Jamie?’ She thought she saw a man sheltering under the holly trees. ‘Is it you, Jamie?’

      ‘It all went wrong tonight, darling. My fault.’

      ‘You’d better come inside.’

      ‘I couldn’t get a cab. I was going to borrow MM’s motorcycle, but he went off somewhere with Vera.’

      ‘You’re soaking wet. Hurry, the blackout.’

      ‘I always forget about the blackout,’ he said. The water was running off the leather visor of his cap and down his face. She could feel the rain from his coat dripping onto her bare feet. ‘I waited in Market Hill, but once the rain started everyone wanted cabs.’

      ‘You walked? You fool!’ She laughed with joy and embraced him, cold and wet as he was.

      ‘I think I love you, Vicky.’

      ‘A note of doubt?’ she teased. ‘Have you learned nothing from Vince?’

      He laughed. ‘I love you.’

      ‘I love you, Jamie. Let’s never quarrel again.’

      ‘Not ever. I promise.’

      They were childish promises, but only childlike pledges are proper to the simple truth of love. She loved him with a desperation she’d never known before, but she took him to her bed for the same prosaic reason that has motivated so many other women—she could not bear to dispel the image of herself in love.

      Afterwards he said nothing for what seemed an age. She knew he was staring at the ceiling, his body so still that she could hear his heartbeats. ‘Are you awake?’ she said.

      He stretched out his arm to hold her closer. ‘Yes, I’m awake.’

      ‘It’s Christmas Day.’

      He leaned over and greeted her with a gentle but perfunctory kiss.

      ‘Are you married?’ she asked, making it as casual as possible.

      He laughed. ‘Lousy timing, Victoria,’ he said. Then, aware of her anxiety, he held up hands bare except for a class ring. ‘Not married, nor engaged, not even dating regularly.’

      ‘You’re making fun of me.’

      ‘Of course I am.’

      ‘That girl…’

      ‘She was very sick. It was the fruit punch, it put a lot of people out of action. Vince threw everything he could find into it.’

      ‘Who was she?’

      ‘Vince met her last week. She works in the laundry. He made me promise not to tell you she was there, he knew you’d feel bound to tell Vera.’ He turned over to look into her eyes. ‘You must guess what Vince is like by now. He’s everything a girl’s mother warns her about.’

      ‘He’s not a flyer, is he?’

      ‘No. He’s the PRO, the Public Relations Officer. He buys drinks for reporters and takes them round the base and sends them press handouts.’

      ‘He told Vera he’d flown twenty missions over Germany.’

      ‘He keeps that blouse with the wings and stuff in his suitcase. He tells his girls they have to be nice to him, he might never come back from the next one.’ He laughed.

      Victoria laughed too, but it was unconvincing laughter. She held Jamie very tight and wondered what it would be like enduring the strain of knowing that Jamie might not come back. Why wasn’t Jamie a PRO, or someone else who didn’t have to risk his life?

      ‘Did you see Earl Koenige?’ asked Jamie. ‘Straw-haired kid with a you-all accent and big incredulous eyes?’

      ‘The one you’re going to be flying with? He looks no more than sixteen.’

      ‘He can handle his ship pretty well,’ said Jamie. It was not the sort of compliment he gave freely. ‘But he fell off the piano just after you left. He was trying to tap-dance and wave the Stars and Bars at the same time.’

      ‘Did he hurt himself? He looked drunk.’

      ‘I don’t think Earl’s ever tasted whisky before. His folks are teetotal, church-going farmers. No, he bounced up okay and said he hoped he hadn’t hurt the piano.’

      ‘And did your friend Charlie arrive?’

      ‘He sent a message. His navigator had to stay on base, so the whole crew stayed with him. Say, do you have an aspirin?’

      ‘On the table under the light.’

      He tore open the packet and swallowed two tablets without water. ‘I thought he’d cracked his skull at first, but Earl’s always falling off his bicycle or spilling hot coffee down himself. He writes to his folks every day and I guess without his accidents he’d have nothing to tell them.’

      ‘Well, he should have no lack of material for his next letter,’ said Victoria. ‘Was that really your Commanding Officer! He was playing dice with a sergeant, and calling him Harry, and passing

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