Fallen Skies Read online

  Stephen turned away and led Lily to the car. She went slowly, unwillingly. As they walked people came towards Lily, ignoring Stephen, to take hold of her hands. Badly dressed women hugged Lily and whispered quick comforting words to her. Men came up and wrung her hand. “One of the best, really one of the best, your ma,” one of them said. One fat woman with her gloves splitting along the seams held Lily and rocked her while the tears coursed down her red cheeks. “Bloody hell, Lil,” she said. “What’ll we do without her?”

  Lily’s composure broke at that. She let out a little cry and flung her arms around the woman’s waist. Her hat fell off and Stephen stooped to pick it up. Lily was at once surrounded by people, men and women muttering, “Poor little duck.” “She looks about done in.” “Such a loss for her.” “Not many girls have a mother like that.”

  “You come home with me,” the big woman said. “I’ve boiled a ham all ready. I thought it was the right thing to do.”

  Stephen stepped forward. “I will take Lily home,” he said pleasantly. “She will be well looked after, I assure you.”

  The woman looked uncertainly at him. “We were going to have a bite to eat. You’re very welcome to come too, Sir.”

  Stephen put his hand out to Lily. “Thank you very much but I think Lily should come home with me and rest.”

  Lily did not obey him as he had expected. She kept her arm around the big woman’s waist and her head laid on the fat shoulder. “I’ll go and have my dinner with Betty. I’ll come home this afternoon.”

  Stephen was too wise to argue. “Of course. I’ll send the car around for you at three, shall I?”

  Lily nodded. “Tell Coventry to come to the shop,” she said.

  Stephen stepped back and let Betty and the rest of them pass. They smelled faintly of mothballs from the Sunday suits. Stephen watched them walk out of the church gate and down the road. Then he went across the road to where Coventry waited with the car.

  “Go and collect Lily from the corner shop at three,” he said. “Drop me at the office now. I might as well do some work for what’s left of the day.”

  • • •

  Lily was glad to be in Betty’s house. Betty had bought a bottle of sweet cheap sherry and everyone drank to Helen’s memory and Betty made a speech reminding everyone of Helen’s generosity with tick, and her fairness. Then the men went out and brought back a jug of beer and they carved the ham and ate it with white bread and butter and wilting tasteless lettuce. Dick Sharp had brought some of his tomatoes from his allotment and they were small and sweet. Lily’s Aunt Mary had made a summer pudding with gooseberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants and a handful of raspberries from her precious raspberry canes. Lily ate well, for the first time in days, and some colour came back into her cheeks.

  “What are you going to do, Lil?” Betty asked, bringing her a strong sweet cup of tea to finish the meal. “The shop’s no good for you, I take it?”

  Lily shook her head. “I’m promised to Stephen Winters,” she said. “The gentleman at the church.”

  “Get away!” Betty was enormously impressed. “Your ma told me about him and I said he’d be up to no good. But she told me he was a real gentleman. Fancy you marrying up, Lily! You’ll be so grand. Here!” she called over to Mary. “Lil’s going to marry that gentleman at the church. Stephen Winters. What d’you think of that!”

  Mary came over and kissed Lily on both cheeks. “Well, that is good news. And there was me, lying awake at nights, worrying what would become of you left all alone in the world while you are set up with a handsome man and a good fortune. He’s a lawyer, didn’t your ma tell me? And a hero too? Didn’t he get a big medal or something in the war?”

  Lily nodded.

  “That’s right,” Betty said. “Helen was telling me. There was a farmhouse which the Jerries had captured and they had killed the women who had been hiding inside it—and done worse to them too. There was a baby there as well—savages they were. That was killed too. But your gentleman rushed up to it, captured it, and killed the Jerries. They gave him a medal.”

  “He never talks about the war,” Lily said.

  “Well, he wouldn’t, would he?” Mary demanded. “That sort never do. It’s the ones who were twenty miles behind the line who won’t stop talking about it, like my George who won it single-handed if you listen to him. But your young man, Lily, why, he’d never say a word.”

  Betty nodded. “It was in all the papers,” she said. “All of them were killed, our boys and the Jerries, everyone except your young gentleman and his batman or whatever they call them.”

  “Coventry?” Lily asked. “Was Coventry there too?”

  Betty nodded. “Is that his name? Your ma looked it up while you were away and she showed it to me, in the papers. Ten of our boys went into the attack on the farmhouse. It was called one of those funny names, Pullyers, something like that. And of the ten, only two came back. They killed all the Germans. But all the women and the baby inside were dead.”

  “Raped, I suppose?” Mary said out of the corner of her mouth.

  “Dreadful,” Betty confirmed. “Raped and stabbed, and the little baby! Stabbed on bayonets where they lay. Devils they are, the Germans. They got all that was coming to them and if I had my way we’d have turned the lot of them over to the Russians. Let ’em sort each other out. Blood-thirsty savages, all of ’em.”

  Lily moved away and looked out through the net curtains to the corner shop opposite where she had spent her childhood. There was an agent’s “To Let” sign up outside.

  “I’ll come over and help you pack up tomorrow,” Betty said behind her. “Past is past, Lil. Your ma wouldn’t want you to grieve.”

  Lily nodded. “I know.”

  “When’s the wedding?” Betty demanded. “Have you set a date?”

  “I only agreed the day before yesterday,” Lily said. “We haven’t decided.”

  “And you live at his house with his mum and dad, do you? That must be cosy.”

  Lily gave a little laugh. The cold silent house was anything but cosy. “It’s all right,” she said. “His father is bedridden. He’s had a stroke. His mother is nice.”

  “She’ll take the place of Helen,” Betty assured her. “A girl your age, about to marry, needs a mother.”

  Lily shook her head. “No-one could take her place.”

  “But she’ll take you around and show you the ropes. You’ll meet their friends and get to know the nobs. And you’ll buy wonderful clothes. I expect you’ll have a proper trousseau and go away!”

  “I expect so.”

  “You don’t look too thrilled,” Mary said, coming up on the other side of Lily. “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing, Lil? Don’t you go rushing into it and making a mistake. They’re one thing when they’re courting and another when they’re married.”

  Lily turned on her that blue blank gaze. “I don’t know,” she said simply. “Ever since Ma died I feel like nothing matters. It doesn’t matter if I marry him or not. It doesn’t matter if I ever sing again or not. Everything I did, really, was to please her. All of my singing, going on tour, getting a job. I wanted her to be proud of me. Now she’s gone I can’t see the point of it. I can’t see the point of anything.”

  Mary and Betty exchanged a glance. “I know it,” Mary said. “That could be me speaking. I lost my mother when I was twenty. The doctors told her it would kill her to have another baby but what could she do? They didn’t tell her how to not get one. They were right. She swelled up when she was six months gone. Kidneys, they said. I thought my world had ended. It took me years and years to get over it.”

  Lily looked at her blankly. “I can’t imagine ever feeling right.”

  “No,” Mary said. “Just get through each day, Lil darling. Just take a day at a time and get through each one.”

  “Could I come and live with you?” Lily asked, turning to Betty. “Just stay here till I get back to work again?”

  “Oh, bless you!” B