PS: I LOVE YOU

Chapter One

July 1941

    As the late twilight fell, the London streets grew quiet. A few cars and taxis drove down Oxford Street, past the boarded windows of the shops. From open windows floated the sound of music – dance music, jazz, the crooning voice of Frank Sinatra, the warm tones of Vera Lynn, the lively sound of the jitterbug. In the deepening blue, moonlight glowed on the swollen bellies of the barrage balloons floating above the city. Later, there might be the criss-crossing tracery of the white swords of searchlights. Or the night might remain dark and quiet.
    It was the second year of the war.
    On the corner of Marble Arch, the high, ornate façade of the Lyons’ Corner House gleamed white against the purple dusk. From outside, it seemed silent and boarded against the raids that had torn London apart. But when the great doors were thrust open and the heavy blackout curtain pushed aside, an explosion of colour and light embraced the hesitant customer, drawing him in with a welcome echoed in the brightness of the Seater’s smile as she invited him to a table.
    The chandeliers had gone, the exotic paintings been replaced by wartime posters exhorting caution and economy. But whatever changes war had wrought, the Nippy who came to serve him was the same as ever the Nippies had been – smart, clean, crisp and pleasant. And if the menu she held was shorter, and if you weren’t allowed more than one kind of protein, it didn’t seem to matter. Somehow, walking into a Corner House was more like coming home than visiting a restaurant. 
   ‘It’s nice of you to say that, sir,’ Phyl Bennett said to the young soldier who made this remark. ‘It’s what we try to do – make our customers feel at home.’ She looked at his tired face. ‘You been in action? No – don’t answer that,’ she added hastily. ‘I know you’re not supposed to say anything. Walls have ears, eh?’
    He grinned a little wearily. ‘Well, let’s say I’m on leave. Going home to see me mum tomorrow. No harm in telling you that, I s’pose.’
   ‘No harm at all.’ Phyl took his order and hurried off to the kitchen. It tore at her heart to see these young men, no more than boys, most of them, sent off to fight with almost no training. I bet he never meant to be a soldier, she thought. I bet he just wanted to be a motorbike mechanic or a train driver or something like that.
   ‘A lot of chaps do want to be soldiers, though,’ her cousin Jo Mason said when Phyl told her what she was thinking. ‘Or sailors, or airmen. Like my Nick,’ she added sadly. ‘He was thrilled to bits when he got the chance to learn to fly, and now look at him.’
    Phyl nodded. She hadn’t seen Nick, but Jo had told her about the bandages that swathed his head and body after he had been shot down in his Spitfire on the very day before they had been due to marry. ‘Well, at least he’s still alive. And you’ll be able to get married the minute they let him out of hospital.’
    She collected her order and went back into the restaurant. She still felt guilty that she and Mike had gone ahead with their own wedding. They’d planned a double wedding and when Jo had rushed off to Kent to see Nick, Phyl had wanted to postpone everything. But Jo, white and tight-lipped, had told her not to be so daft, and she’d been persuaded to go ahead. And, aware that Mike too would be sent away and there was no knowing when she might see him again, Phyl had agreed.
    I’m glad we did get married, she thought, waiting at the door of the restaurant for another Nippy to finish what she was doing at the till and move out of the way, but it does seem so hard on poor Jo.
    The Corner House was as busy as ever. War had changed the customers too, or at least the way they dressed. Instead of smart clothes, worn for shopping or for office work, many people now wore Service uniform and there were sprinklings of khaki, dark navy and air force blue amongst the suits and colourful summer dresses. But the faces were bright and animated - men and girls having an evening out and enjoying a meal together. There are some things, Phyl thought, that even Hitler can’t change.
    The other girl had finished at the till and Phyl walked briskly across to the young soldier and set his meal before him. He looked up at her.
   ‘That looks smashing. Here – what time d’you finish your shift? I suppose you wouldn’t come out with me for an hour or so? Just for a walk or something,’ he added hastily. ‘There wouldn’t be nothing funny.’
    Phyl gazed at him pityingly. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t – I’m married, you see, and I don’t go out with other fellers. Haven’t you got a girl friend, then?’
    He shook his head. ‘I did have, but she met someone else. Well, I don’t blame her, we weren’t serious.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s OK. I just wanted a bit of company, that’s all. You know how it is.’
    I do know, Phyl thought, giving him another apologetic smile before hurrying away to serve another table. They’re all lonely, and they all want a bit of company when they’re on leave. It’s easy enough to feel sorry for them and say yes, just for a walk, just for a chat. But I know what it can lead to. And she glanced across the restaurant at Maggie Wheeler, and thought what it had led to in her case…

********

    They’d been talking about it only that evening as they got ready for their shift. Maggie had been standing in front of the mirror, gazing in despair at her distending figure. She heaved a huge sigh.
   ‘Gawd, look at that. Like a blooming elephant. I’ve let this frock out so many times now the stitches have got stitches in ’em. I’m sure old Turgoose has twigged, you know. I caught her looking at me yesterday. Might be a dried-up old spinster but she still knows a belly full of arms and legs when she sees one. I’ve got another week here and then I’m for the high jump.’ She grinned wryly. ‘That’ll bring things on a bit!’
    The other girls looked at her with sympathy. Shirley Woods tidied her cloud of dark hair under her cap and moved over to give Maggie room at the mirror. ‘Has Mr Carter said anything, then?’
   ‘Oh yes, had me in his office yesterday afternoon. I never got a chance to tell you then. Nice as pie, he was, but there’s nothing he can do about it. He told me at the outset, soon as it starts to interfere with me work, out I go, and anyone can see I’ve got a job to get past the tables now. Can’t expect nothing else, can I?’ Her mouth twisted ruefully. ‘Get yourself in the club, get yourself out of it, that’s the way it is. And they can’t have me letting down the good name of Lyons Corner Houses, can they.’
   ‘Well, I think it’s a shame,’ Etty Brown said loyally. She and Maggie shared a room at the hostel where Etty had lived after leaving the orphanage where she’d grown up. Small, sallow-skinned, with the dark eyes and slightly large nose that had made life hard for her with some of the girls at the hostel, and even with one or two Nippies – notably Irene Bond, who had joined Lyons at the same time as the other five – Etty was fiercely protective of big, yellow-haired Maggie. Her first experience of real family life had begun when Maggie took her to the house at the back of St Paul’s, sprawling with brothers and sisters, and now that Etty and Maggie’s brother Jim were officially engaged, the two were now virtually sisters.
   ‘It’s awful the way people like Maggie are treated,’ she went on. ‘And the baby, too. It’s not his fault – or hers - is it? And it’s not Maggie’s, either.’
    Everyone knew what she meant, but nobody – not even Maggie herself - could fairly say she was right. Maggie had asked for it, one or two of the other Nippies who didn’t like her, had said spitefully, and nobody could deny that she hadn’t done much to avoid it.
    Except for that once. And even Maggie didn’t know the truth about that.
   ‘So what did Mr Carter say?’ Phyl asked. ‘He didn’t just give you the sack, surely?’
   ‘Well, not in so many words.’ Maggie did up the last straining button. ‘It’s going to be a race whether it’s me or this frock that goes first… No, you know what he’s like, he always tries to wrap things up nice. He just said he was sorry but no one would believe it was just ordinary weight gain any more – specially with rationing the way it is! – and he’d have to give me me notice. So I said that was all right, I’d bin going to hand it in meself and that’s what I’d do. Tell you the truth, it’s bin getting too much for me anyway, I’m getting veins and when I gets home I’m almost too tired to lay on the bed.’
   ‘I think he’s been worried about you for a few weeks now,’ Jo said. ‘I’ve seen him looking at you, and he said to me one day didn’t I think you ought to sit down and put your feet up at mealtimes. He never really wanted to get rid of you.’
   ‘Course he didn’t,’ Etty said loyally. ‘Why, you’re one of the best Nippies we got. I wish I could be as jolly and cheery with the customers. You’ve always got a joke to share, and that’s what they like.’
   ‘Mm. Pity I didn’t leave it at just sharing jokes,’ Maggie said with a wry grin. ‘Wouldn’t be in this mess now if I’d managed to keep meself to meself, would I. Me and my war work!’
    It was hard not to laugh, even though everyone knew just how serious Maggie’s situation was. She wasn’t exactly an unmarried mother, because she was a widow, but anyone who knew her would know that her husband Tommy had been killed at Dunkirk – far too long ago for the baby she was carrying to be his. And anyone who knew her would also know that she’d gone with a lot of young Servicemen after Tommy had died. Giving them some love and comfort before they went off to war, she’d said, but a lot of people would have just called her a tart.
   ‘What are you going to do now?’ Phyl asked her. ‘Go down to your mum and gran in the country?’
   ‘Yeah, I reckon so. Can’t stop at the hostel with Et, can I? And Dad and the twins are in that men’s lodging-house, I can’t go there. Anyway, Mum and Gran have got our Evie’s kiddies to look after too, so I reckon I can help out there, and one more won’t make that much difference.’
   ‘Are you going to keep it, then? You won’t get it adopted?’ Phyl knew two or three girls who had had illegitimate babies, and they’d all had them adopted. ‘Are you sure you’ll be able to manage?’
   ‘It’s ever so hard, keeping a baby like that,’ Jo joined in. ‘You want to think about what sort of life it’ll have, Mags.’
   ‘I know. I haven’t decided what to do, not really.’ Maggie gave her hair a final brush and pulled on her cap. ‘See, after I lost Tommy’s baby, I didn’t think I’d ever have another one. I mean, I never thought I’d find anyone like my Tom that I’d want to get married to. And now – well, it’s like a second chance. And it’ll be my baby. I’m its mum. I don’t know if I’ll be able to let it go, to be honest. The only thing is…’ She bit her lip and glanced down at the floor. ‘Well – it’s not knowing whose it is, see? I mean, it could be Davey’s for all he was still wet behind the ears – he was a fast learner.’ Her irrepressible grin broke out for a moment. ‘Or Andy’s – and Andy was kind of special, he was the only one I thought I might – well, I dunno what happened to him, dead by now I shouldn’t wonder. So if it was either of theirs, well, I might want to keep it. But…’ Her voice trailed away and the other girls looked at her with sympathy.
   ‘But it might be that other bloke’s,’ Phyl said. ‘The one that – that –’
   ‘Took me down the alley and raped me,’ Maggie said bluntly. ‘Yes, it might. And if it is – well, I dunno if I could ever feel quite the same about it. I mean, if it looked like him – well, every time I saw its little face, I’d be reminded, see. I don’t know if I could ever feel properly motherly towards it. Even though it’s not the poor little sod’s fault. So –‘ She looked up and gave them a slightly twisted grin, ‘I reckon I’ll just have to wait and see, won’t I. And then perhaps I’ll be able to make up me mind.’

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