The girl he’d believed himself to be falling in love with.

The girl he’d allowed himself to imagine might, just might, have been starting to feel the same.

25

‘Kath? Where the hell have you been? It’s going any minute now.’

Marcia grabbed her hand and dragged her towards the row of buses rumbling impatiently in a cloud of exhaust by the gatehouse. There hadn’t even been time for a goodnight kiss. Shame, he was such a good kisser, that Harry; or was it Larry? She turned to wave at him, but he’d already disappeared.

They stumbled up the steps onto the bus and took the only empty seats, at the back.

‘Goodness, that was so much fun.’ Kath’s head was swimming. ‘Those cocktails certainly pack a punch.’

‘I couldn’t find you anywhere. The driver was threatening to leave you behind.’

‘Larry took me to see his Thunderbolt,’ Kath said rather too loudly, her words falling into a sudden lull in the general hubbub. The bus erupted with hysterical laughter.

‘Was it a big one, his Thunderbolt, Motts?’

‘Your first Thunderbolt, was it?’

‘Not fair. I want to see his Thunderbolt too.’

The teasing went on for at least ten minutes before the girls tired of it and fell asleep, the silence punctuated only by curses from the driver as he navigated narrow winding lanes illuminated only by ‘blackout slit’ headlights. Kath climbed into bed with a throbbing head and set her alarm clock. There were just four hours till the start of her next shift.

At breakfast, the teasing began again. By now the whole station seemed to know, and even perfect strangers came up to her asking about the Thunderbolt. After her shift she sought refuge in Marcia’s room.

‘Go away,’ her friend groaned, pulling the blanket over her head.

‘Time to wake up. I’ll get water for tea, shall I?’ Despite strict rules banning food and drink in their quarters, Marcia’s roommate Frances had ‘borrowed’ an electric element from the workshop where her boyfriend worked, which they suspended into a large metal teapot, adding tea leaves when the water began to boil. A sprinkle of dried milk and a spoonful of sugar made a very acceptable cuppa. By the time it was ready Marcia had unearthed a packet of only slightly stale ‘squashed fly’ biscuits from a drawer.

‘I gather you rather enjoyed yourself last night?’

‘Don’t you start. I had enough of that at breakfast. What about you?’

‘The band was brilliant, wasn’t it? So refreshing after all those boring old waltzes and quicksteps, and a nice change to find partners actually taller than me.’ Marcia took a bite of biscuit, grimaced, threw it into the bin and tried another one.

‘Anyway, apart from the obvious, how was the now-famous Larry?’

‘Tall, good-looking, white teeth, smelled of chewing gum. Good kisser. And before you ask, no, we didn’t.’ In truth, Kath was starting to feel rather ashamed of her behaviour the previous evening. Larry might have been a good kisser, but there was no tenderness, no emotion. She still remembered that kiss with Vic, so sweet, so poignant, both of them knowing it might be the last time they would meet for many months, perhaps even years. ‘Who did you dance with?’