remember, Mum,’ Luke and Grace chanted together, laughing, ‘there’s a war on.’
‘Oh, give over, you two, as if I didn’t know that.’
It was hard to remain stern, though, when the sun was shining and everyone was in such good spirits and with such good reason.
No wonder it felt as though the whole city, or those who were left in it, were turning out to give thanks for being spared.
Grace hung back from the rest of her family deliberately, slipping her arm through Seb’s.
‘We are so lucky. I was so afraid, Seb, afraid that something would happen and that you and I would never … But here we are, both still safe and well …’
‘And we still haven’t …’ Seb began teasingly, but Grace blushed and laughed and shook her head at him.
‘None of that kind of talk now. You know what we agreed.’
He should have seized his chance whilst he had the opportunity, Seb thought ruefully, but on the other hand Grace was well worth waiting for, even if her passionate response to him earlier in the week had had him lying awake every night since imagining how things might be.
Good girls didn’t ‘do it’ before marriage, supposedly, only of course sometimes they did, and it was such a long time to wait before Grace would have finished her training and they could get married. And now there was that other matter as well.
Seb frowned. He had been taken completely by surprise when his commanding officer had sent for him and told him that he was going to be transferred to a new Y Section that was being set up in Whitchurch.
At first it would just be him and some other trained operatives, but more operatives would join them once they had received their training. The recent news that one of the Enigma machines and its code books had been captured had sent a buzz of elation and excitement through everyone connected with Bletchley Park, where they were working flat out now on the codes.
Seb had been told that his new post would be a promotion but he acknowledged that he would have been feeling much happier about it if it didn’t mean that he would be moving away from Liverpool and Grace.
He looked at her. The sunlight caught the curls in her strawberry-blonde hair, and revealed a small dusting of freckles across her nose. She was so pretty, his Grace, with her warm smile and those eyes of hers that reflected the depth of both her emotions and her loyalty. If the months since they had first met at the very beginning of the war, and all that had happened during them had brought a certain gravity and even sometimes sadness to her eyes when she talked of the courage of her patients, then Seb loved her all the more because of it. His Grace was more than a pretty face – much more – and he wouldn’t want to change anything about her.
His parents loved her, and he knew that when the war was over and the time came for them to make their lives wherever his work took him, Grace would create a comfortable and a happy home for him and their children, even if that meant she had to move away from her own family to whom she was so close. But for all the maturity she had gained since they had first met, today, in her relief after several nights without any bombing raids, and with her joyous smile, she looked so carefree and happy that he didn’t want to spoil that happiness by telling her that he was going to be moved out of Liverpool.
Grace looked at Seb and smiled warmly at him, increasing his guilt at keeping something so important from her, but this wasn’t the time to tell her. He wanted to wait until they were on their own.
In front of them, neither Luke nor Katie was smiling.
‘Well, I still don’t see why you would want to go and see your parents behind my back and without me,’ Luke was saying, sticking doggedly to the point he had been trying to make ever since Katie had let slip that she was planning a visit to her family.
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Katie defended herself unhappily. ‘I’ve already told you how it happened. When I thought that your mum and the twins were going to evacuate to Wallasey I decided I’d take some leave that was owing to me and go and see my parents. I couldn’t tell you because I haven’t seen you, and now that it looks like the bombing raids are over I don’t want to let Mum and Dad down by not going.’
‘But you don’t mind letting me down?’ Luke’s voice was bitter.
Katie suppressed an unhappy sigh. It upset her so much when Luke was like this, although she was trying hard not to show it. Katie hated scenes. They made her feel physically sick with misery and so anxious to get things ‘back to normal’ that she was ready to say anything that would appease him. Sometimes, though, no matter what she did say or how much she tried to agree with him, it just seemed to make matters worse.
Today this mood of Luke’s when he started accusing her of not loving him because in his eyes she was not putting him first, had caught her off guard, making her feel vulnerable and spoiling things between them on what should have been a happy occasion, with the relief of the blitz having so miraculously ceased.
‘If you really loved me you’d wait until I can come with you,’ Luke insisted.
He had no idea what drove him to be like this with Katie, whom he loved so very very much, he only knew that somehow the more he tried to make her be open and straight with him, the more she seemed to withdraw from him to a place where he wasn’t allowed; and the more he wanted to secure her to him, the more elusive she seemed to become, and that hurt and scared him. Not that he could ever admit to that. He was a man, after all, and men had to be strong and in control of their emotions.
Katie looked away from Luke. She couldn’t bear this, she really couldn’t. It reminded her of the awful quarrels her parents had had when she had been growing up and brought back her old feelings of fear and misery.
‘Very well then,’ she gave in, ‘I’ll write and tell my parents that we’ll both go and see them when you’ve got some leave, if that’s what you want.’
Luke frowned. He knew her agreement should have made him feel happy but somehow it didn’t. And as for what he wanted – Luke didn’t know what it was that he actually wanted, he only knew that whatever it was it would make him feel far happier than he did right now. What he wanted ultimately was for him and Katie to be so close to one another that he didn’t have to worry about what she was thinking, or if she really did love him, or was just saying the words because he had pressed her to say them. His mum showed all the time how much she loved his dad. At home his dad’s word was law, not that his dad ever had to raise his voice or make demands for anyone to know that. His mother was the one who made sure that everyone knew that Dad was the boss.
Luke admired his father more than any other man he knew, and now that he was a man himself the two of them were every bit as close as a father and son should be. But Luke had grown up seeing his father always being more openly affectionate and loving with Luke’s sisters than he had been with him, and somehow that had made him feel left out.
He’d seen how, when all three of his sisters over the years had gone up to their father, put their arms round him, leaned their heads on his shoulder, and sat on his lap when they were small, Sam had always laughed and responded. But when he had gone to his father for the same comfort, say with a cut leg or on those occasions when for one reason or another he was hurting inside in a way that he couldn’t explain and had needed his father’s reassurance, Sam had always been brusque and offhand with him, pushing him away.
Sam might say that he loved him and that he was proud of him, but sometimes when he felt the way he was doing now, deep down inside Luke couldn’t help comparing the difference between the way his father had treated him when he was growing up and the open affection he had shown Luke’s sisters.
What did words mean after all? What if the truth was that he just wasn’t someone that could be loved? Words were easy enough to say, but how did you know what was really inside someone’s heart. How could he give his trust and his own heart to another person when he wasn’t sure how she really felt?
Surely if Katie loved him as