When We Fall Read online

  The Swordfish rises higher and Vee’s hands tighten on the control stick, fighting to keep the angle gradual. Tiny boats leave silver trails across the grey sea. Soon, very soon, she will need to start the inland turn. She has no feel for the Swordfish apart from its strength and no sense of how forgiving it will be on the turn. Ready for a fight, Vee holds her breath as she tilts the stick and works the pedals. But as the angle comes, it feels smooth and controlled. With the wind behind her, the nose dips but there seems no loss of height.

  The long perimeter of the aerodrome comes into full view. Vee blinks through her goggles at the figures, now scattering beside the deflated balloons. And one of the men does, indeed, seem tall and dark-haired. And he seems to be staring at the Swordfish. Vee cannot quite take her eyes off him. Then, he starts to run. He is coming her way. And, when he comes directly below, he raises an oversized pistol and points it at her plane.

  A red glare flashes across the double wings. The reflex from Vee’s shoulder transmits itself to the plane and automatically the Swordfish banks away from the flare. Vee looks up. And there, bathed in pink light and so close she feels as if she could touch it, is the soft belly of a balloon. Directly beneath it, almost in the space where the Swordfish’s wings have just been, is the balloon’s metal anchor cable. Without that warning from the Very flare, the cable would have sliced through the Swordfish like a cheese-wire.

  Coldness sweeps through Vee’s core. How could that balloon have been invisible? And how could she have almost lost an aircraft, lost everything in fact, because she was distracted by a dark-haired chap who looked a bit like the one that yesterday kissed her hand? Vee looks at the balloon that is flopping belatedly downwards and her stomach heaves. This is the closest she has ever come to catastrophe.

  Hot bile jabs into the back of Vee’s throat but she cannot risk leaning over the side to be sick. If she is going to throw up it will have to be on to her lap. Swallowing hard she takes a long breath then glances at her map. Easily, she finds the right bearings. The vis below the cloud base is arctic sharp and the Swordfish, now comfortable in the air, feels calm and obedient.

  China blue wedges open through the cloud and Vee takes at last a lungful of air. Is she really allowing herself to jeopardise her future as a pilot, indeed her future full stop, because of a school-girlish crush? Clearly, she is incapable of flying and having an admirer at the same time, so one of them will have to go. And there is no contest at all about which one it will be.

  The tailwind whips the Swordfish along, and before Vee is expecting to see it, a shaft of light picks out the familiar gasometer at Reading. Then, it is only a short skip above the railway line towards London before the familiar aerodrome, billiard green and dotted with planes, comes into view.

  Captain Mills is bound to be looking out for her. Perhaps that sergeant at Gosport has already telephoned him to report the near-catastrophe with the balloon. And Vee cannot blame the mistake on anything except her own carelessness. So, if she is going to prove Captain Mills wrong, now is the time. An ill-judged pancake landing might be enough to give her the shortest career on ATA record.

  Vee scans the sky. Another plane is already circling above the mown X of landing strips. Four engines. A Lanc. Vee watches it spiral on to the ground as she circuits the field and gets the hang of the wind. But a firm breeze seems to suit the Swordfish. Nose slightly up. Tail-wheel ever so slightly down. The three-point touchdown is textbook smooth.

  Vee steers towards the holding area, relief deflating the tension inside her. Nothing went horribly wrong. The Swordfish has been delivered on time and in one piece despite the wind. But that flare… someone here is bound to find out.

  In the Ops room, though, Captain Mills has no comment as she hands him her copy of the chit for the Swordfish. He says nothing at all, in fact; nothing about the balloon, or about her near-perfect landing. Her pulse which has been racing begins to slow. Then, as she picks up her bag he raises one eyebrow in her direction.

  ‘Ah yes, Katchatourian.’

  His voice is flat and Vee’s pulse again quickens. Is he about to give her another job? Or has the sergeant at Gosport already ratted on her? But Captain Mills’ face, as always, is unreadable.

  ‘Would you please take this greenery out of our way?’

  Vee blinks. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘This foliage, here. It’s aggravating Miss Blunt’s hay fever.’

  He nods to a filing cabinet in the corner by the door. On the top of it, wrapped in pink cellophane and tied with a silk ribbon, are at least twenty white roses. Vee stares. Her brain cannot quite process the possibility that they are for her.

  ‘Flowers?’

  ‘That is what they look like from here.’

  ‘For me?’

  ‘So it says on the label.’

  ‘There’s some mistake…’

  ‘I don’t think we have any other V Katchatourian here do we, Miss Blunt. It’s a singular sort of name.’

  The tweed-suited woman clacking at a typewriter inclines her head and smirks.

  Cellophane crackles in Vee’s hands. The blooms are tightly furled and odourless. Each one must have cost several shillings. Blood starts pumping faster around her body. She has the sense of life blowing her forward like a tailwind behind the Swordfish.

  There are winks and grins as she carries the lavish bouquet along the corridor and past the mess. The flowers are entirely out of keeping with Vee’s everyday unlipsticked appearance. And indeed, until this moment, twenty white roses would have struck her as an embarrassing cliché of romance, yet she finds with surprise that she likes being seen with them. She feels a glow of, yes, pride. And there is nothing quite as satisfying as taking people aback.

  As Vee pushes open the locker room door, Sonia looks up from the make-up compact in her hand.

  ‘Oh my!’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘From Mr 302?’

  Vee cannot quite say anything through the turbulence of her facial muscles. She is beaming, frowning, blushing, shrugging, all at once. Is her resolution which she made to herself less than an hour ago, to put flying ahead of love affairs, going to be blown away by a bunch of flowers? She hides her face in the bouquet as she puts it on a bench. The tightly furled petals do have a smell, but one that is vaguely antiseptic.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What does the card say?’

  But Sonia has already pulled a little pink envelope from the ribbon and is handing it to Vee. It is addressed to: Third Officer Miss V Katchatourian. She cannot quite bring herself to tear it open.

  ‘Come on, Vee. I’ve got to go for my Master lesson in a sec.’

  Vee tries to laugh but it turns into a cough. It would probably be for the best if the words inside the envelope make her cringe – some badly translated declaration that sounds flowery and ridiculous. Then it will be easy to send Stefan a cool response that ends his interest in her once and for all.

  ‘Go on, Vee, open it!’

  Vee fumbles at the miniature envelope and half exposes the card inside.‘Well, what does it say?’

  Vee skims the card bordered with daisy chains. Please attend a tutorial in flying blind. 9pm, Saturday 17 April, The 400 Club, Leicester Square.

  Sonia folds her arms. ‘Well, that’s not very romantic. And he doesn’t bother to put his name. Is it even Mr 302?’

  ‘Yes. It’s him.’

  ‘Will you go?’

  Vee shrugs.

  ‘I thought you liked him?’

  ‘I…’ Vee opens her mouth to say that she thinks she likes him too much, that he has taken over her thoughts to the point where she is not safe in the air. And, anyway, if she wants him that badly, it all probably leads to dreadful upset. But Vee finds that her throat has tightened so firmly that she cannot speak. For a horrifying, ridiculous second she wonders if she is goin
g to cry.

  ‘Well, even if you don’t like him, darling, you’d be a fool to pass up an invitation to The 400.’

  Vee gives an exaggerated shrug of both shoulders. ‘I must though, especially as all this, these flowers, The 400, it’s all so extravagant…’

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘Doesn’t it make him look, you know, too keen?’

  ‘Like he wants sex, you mean?’

  ‘Sonia!’

  But as usual, Sonia is right. Vee sees that this is exactly what she has been thinking. And if a kiss on her hand can distract her so completely, what sort of ridiculous state would actual love leave her in?

  ‘But you like him don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know him. At all. How can I say?’

  ‘So you must go along to The 400 and find out. And don’t feel at all intimidated by how much everything costs. Those foreign RAF chaps are rolling in cash. It’s not as if they can send their wages home, is it?’

  ‘No, but…’

  ‘No buts. If you don’t want sex with him at the end of the evening then just say cheerio and thanks for the blooms.’

  ‘And if I do?’

  ‘Then bloody well get on with it!’ Sonia glances at her watch then bangs her locker door shut. ‘Sorry, darling, must dash, McKay will be warming the engine. And I need all of my wits about me so that I don’t actually scream when we land this time.’ She blows a kiss. ‘Get those in water, pronto.’

  Perhaps it is Vee’s imagination but the roses do seem less fresh than they were – the heads a little less upright, the white petals less tight. She pushes Stefan’s card inside the tiny torn envelope and hides it amongst the flowers. Then she takes them to her locker. The roses buckle as she squashes them between her sheepskin flying boots and overalls inside the metal walls. She clanks the door shut and has to lean her weight against it to turn the lock.

  Posen, Greater German Reich

  Friday 16 April

  Ewa stares at her face in the wardrobe mirror and sighs. Her skin is pale and flaky. She has tried pinching at her cheekbones but this just leaves blotches that make her look as if she is coming down with something.

  In her hand, a gold tube of crimson lipstick hovers and Ewa’s mouth slackens, automatically, into a half-open pout. The reflex is well worn even though her lipstick has not been used for months. As soon as she read an article on ‘natural complexion’ in a German women’s magazine, Ewa began to feel self-conscious about using her powder compact and lipstick. True Aryan women never wear make-up, the article had said, although quite why was not made clear.

  Ewa rolls her eyes at her reflection and dabs three crimson spots on to each lip. Even the most fervent party member could not object, surely, to a bit of lipstick for an outing to the pictures? She rubs her lips together and runs her tongue over the greasy-sweet staleness. If Beck kisses her tonight that is how she will taste. Perhaps that might put him off. She half hopes it will. But she can see that the lipstick has widened her mouth and whitened her good-enough teeth.

  Her eyes flick, then, to the bottom of the wardrobe with her recollection of a lipstick mentioned in one of Stefan’s letters. The Polish prisoners, he had written, were allowed to spend whatever roubles they could scrape together at a mobile canteen that circulated the camp. One winter day, amongst the writing paper and shoelaces and Turkish cigarettes that were for sale on the cart, Stefan had spotted a lipstick.

  He wrote about this in a wry tone that was clearly intended to make Ewa smile. But as the letter went on, it had the opposite effect: ‘… there is only one prisoner here who might make use of a lipstick, for we have in the camp, amongst the thousands of men, one solitary woman.’

  Even now, the thought of that one woman sends a hot wave of jealousy through Ewa. Why, damn him, did Stefan not realise what effect his mention of another woman would have? Ewa’s resentment for this mythical female prisoner only grew with his subsequent letters. ‘I had the good fortune last week to speak to our sole female compatriot in the camp. The guards allowed her out of the solitary confinement where she is usually kept to pass a jolly evening with her countrymen. This lady, First Lieutenant Janina Lewandowska, is a female pilot officer of the Polish Air Force. She is a well-known aviatrix and parachutist. I managed to fight through the throng around her in the dining area and introduce myself. She confided that she also did her flying training in Poznań and knows the city well. She has even eaten at your father’s guest house! We reminisced about the Aero Club. I wondered, in fact, if I remembered her sitting at the bar there, but in those days I would not have had the courage to speak to such a glamorous and distinguished flyer.’

  Ewa, who had no memory of such a person at the Aero Club or the guest house, began to dread seeing this woman’s name on the page. When a letter from Stefan arrived, she would let her eyes scan over it for a capital J or L and then leave the reading of this part until last. It began to seem to Ewa that Stefan was more intimate with this female than the other prisoners, perhaps because they were both pilots. He even relied on her to help him out: ‘I have run out of roubles and soon may have to sell my Pelikan pen (you know, the one with the lizard-skin pattern that you used to like). Luckily, Janina, who also admires it, has offered me a good price…’

  As she stands there remembering, Ewa twists the paste engagement ring around the ring finger of her right hand. She continued to wear Stefan’s ring after the occupiers came as a secret defiance. They all assumed that as a German, she would wear an engagement ring on her left hand. So it gave her secret satisfaction to hoodwink them about the ring’s significance. But the paste jewels have been so long on her Polish ring finger, longer than any genuine engagement should be, that the gesture now feels hollow. Then she wiggles the ring off and flings it into her stocking drawer.

  Going back to the wardrobe mirror, Ewa presses an arc of lipstick to her top lip, then completes the thick red O around her mouth. This will be a test for Beck. Has he enough party loyalty to tell her to wipe it off, or will he kiss her anyway?

  Ewa buttons her jacket then clops down the stairs in her good shoes. Beck is waiting for her in the passageway, moulded into his grey-green uniform, freshly shaved and beaming, with his peaked cap under one arm. His heels tap together softly.

  ‘All set?’

  ‘Just my hat.’

  She reaches for the one with the blackcock feathers and goes to the hallstand mirror to position it on to her blonde braids. An unfamiliar woman looks at her from the refection; dark eyes shining, red mouth smiling. Smart and confident. German.

  Once they are out on the square, Beck offers his arm and Ewa does not hesitate. Heat rises inside her as her elbow links with his. She knows that this is reckless but the closeness of a man after being so long on her own makes her feel like a girl again.

  Beck’s gait is purposeful and she has to skip to keep up as they stride across the cobbles. In the crisp twilight, the narrow painted houses seem to float above their dark colonnades. The old town hall’s ornate layers shimmer.

  He smiles down at her. ‘A capital evening for a stroll.’

  His German is more casual than she has heard it before and his whole demeanour more intimate. If he has planned this night out because he suspects Ewa of underground activities, he is a better actor than any she will see on screen tonight.

  ‘It is a lovely evening.’ Ewa’s arm presses into the crook of his elbow. ‘Have you visited Po… Posen before?’

  For a split-second, she was about to say Polen. Did he notice her change the word from the country to the city when the first syllable was already in her mouth? But his smile does not waver.

  ‘No, I had never been to the Warthegau until being posted here. It has proved an unexpected delight of my service.’

  ‘We are quite a provincial place, though. Please don’t expect the cinema to be like those in Berlin.’
r />   ‘Oh, but the Apollo is so stylish. Beautiful, even. Everything here is beautiful.’

  They are on the pavement beside the grey-walled hospital. Just ahead of them, a middle-aged woman scuttles off the kerb and across the road. She does not look their way but there is terror on her face. Winter curfew hours are still in place and it is only half an hour until all Poles must be off the streets. Beck does not seem to see the woman at all.

  ‘And the plans to improve the city will make it one of the most modern in Europe.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Certainly. Along with the improvements to existing buildings like the Castle and the swimming pool, there’s the new park and lakes which will be spectacular once the work on them is complete. Perhaps we could visit them together when the weather improves.’

  ‘That would be super.’

  ‘And of course, there are the new roads. The airport, I hear, is to be entirely upgraded from what it was before.’

  He slides her a sideways look that implies she might have some special interest in this location. Her pulse quickens. Has someone told him how much time she used to spend at the Aero Club, and who with? Her face must not give her away.

  ‘All German people in the city are so grateful for what is being done.’

  Beck looks pained. ‘I’m sure that every inhabitant will see the benefits of Germanisation in the end.’

  Saints in heaven. Why did she even allude to this embarrassing fact about the city? Just mentioning that some residents are German implies that others, the great majority in fact, are not.

  ‘Of course.’

  But Ewa notices, with a detached part of her brain, what Beck’s words also suggest; that the occupiers’ plan to make the city entirely German is not expected to succeed. Perhaps they have already admitted, to themselves at least, that it will be impossible to replace every native Pole with a pidgin-speaking Balkan peasant.