He grabbed her collar and pulled her on to his lips. The kiss was so sudden and so intense that it took Bobby’s breath away. Charlie had never kissed her that way before. He was passionate, yes, but there was always control. Always a holding back. This kiss wasn’t holding back. It was the sort of kiss that was equalparts tender and fierce, bruising the lips and setting every nerve on fire – a kiss filled with vitality and need. Bobby was glad they were in public and not alone together somewhere.
Or was she?
When Charlie drew back, panting heavily, Bobby was speechless. All she could do was let out a gasp. Charlie gave a breathless laugh.
‘What’s up, Bob?’ he asked, grinning. ‘Kiss got your tongue?’
‘Huh.’
‘That’s all you’ve got to say about it?’
‘That was… some kiss,’ she managed to pant as her breath returned. ‘But you’ve no need to look quite so pleased with yourself.’
‘I’ve every right to be pleased with myself, and a more gracious kissee than you would be entirely on my side.’
‘Who taught you to kiss like that? I’m sure it couldn’t have been me.’
He shrugged. ‘I saw it in a film.’
‘Liar. They’d never get a kiss like that past the censors.’
‘Well, let’s say you were the inspiration if not the tutor,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’m saving the rest of it for the day I carry you over the threshold as Mrs Atherton. And it had better be soon, Bobby, because I’m just about done waiting.’
Chapter 6
Charlie’s short period of leave soon passed. He returned to camp to complete preparations for his departure the following day, and Bobby found herself on the dark bus back towards Silverdale. It was too late for Bert the coalman to be out and about, ferrying folk from the bus stop to the village, which meant a two-mile walk home at the other end. Bobby wasn’t much looking forward to that in the blackout, invisible patches of ice making the road treacherous, but she wouldn’t have missed seeing Charlie tonight for the world.
Not that she felt any more settled for it. She had been hoping he would be able to make everything right for her, somehow. Settle the qualms of conscience and give her a clear path out of her dilemma. But if anything, she felt more ill at ease than when she had left Silverdale.
When she thought of what Charlie had said about duty, the way forward seemed clear. She would have to go. She owed it to her country, and to Charlie too – to all those who were fighting. But then memories always arose of her father, as he was at his worst. Half-dead in a hospital bed. Wild-eyed and helpless after another nightmare. Confused and far away as his brain sought refuge in the past, forgetting even who she was. Bloated, shamefaced and hopeless the morning after a drinking spree. Did she not have a duty to him as well? It was easy for others to tell her to look at the bigger picture, when it wasn’t their loved one who suffered. A war had done that too. Now she had to live with the consequences, as it was so often the lot of women to do.
Thinking of her father made Bobby shiver. War had changed him so utterly and terribly, in a way she had never fully comprehended while her mother had been alive to shield herfrom it. After her mam’s death, it had been she and Lilian who had had to deal with the consequences of his wartime experiences. Too many times, Bobby had looked into eyes made mad with remembered horrors and thought how very far they were from the twinkling-eyed boy in the only photo she had of her father in uniform, before he had served in the trenches. Would Charlie, too, return to her so beaten and broken? Already his moods were taking him to dark places where it was impossible for her to follow, just as her father’s nightmares so often did.
Suppose she did decide it was her duty to go. Might she, too, be changed irrevocably by this war? Women didn’t fight but that didn’t mean they didn’t see horrors of their own while serving. Men they befriended – even loved – being lost to them over and over. Pain and grief and fear. War was war, however you were called on to face it.
But then, suppose she chose her duty to her family over her duty to her country and fought tooth and nail against her call-up? Where would that leave her and Charlie? He clearly felt strongly that every man and woman ought to do whatever was asked of them to win this thing. Would it drive a wedge between them after they were married? Would he always hold anger in his heart, and resent her for what he saw as a failure to do her duty at a time when he had been risking his life?
The snatched time they were able to spend together these days so often felt bittersweet. In many ways, her fiancé was the same old Charlie Atherton. He still teased and joked, although sometimes Bobby felt that it seemed forced – she had noticed it more and more when he had been on leave over Christmas. He seemed to love her as much as he always had, however, and was eager for their wedding.
But then there were the shadow times. Sometimes he only seemed irritable or nervy, but the worst times were when he fellquiet, or spoke in that strange, flat, un-Charlie-like tone. She felt so far away from him, then. Every night when she looked at his photograph before turning out the light, Bobby fought to suppress a fear that, one way or another, the war might rip the man she had fallen in love with away from her for good.
The bus was nearing her stop now. She stood to get off.
‘Slacks?’ A Canadian accent cut through glum thoughts, and a heavy hand materialised on her shoulder. ‘Hey, is that you? It’s so darn dark I never saw you.’
She blinked. ‘Ernie?’
Bobby turned around, and there he was: Ernie King, as large as life in his RCAF uniform. One greatcoat sleeve hung empty, suggesting his arm was in a sling, and he was badly in need of a shave, but otherwise he was no different than when she had seen him last.
Bobby couldn’t help laughing, she was so relieved to see him safe, and scandalised an older lady sitting nearby when she threw herself at her friend for a hug.
‘Whoa.’ He laughed as he wrapped his good arm around her. ‘Mind the war wounds, OK? Injured hero here.’
‘Oh, you… Ernie, I could kiss you! Or slap you. We’ve all been worried sick.’
He laughed again: a deep, unrestrained, joyful sound. ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated, as a great man once said. I’m right as rain, Slacks.’
‘Where on earth have you been?’
