Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [126]
Yes, this should have been her moment of moral superiority over Alan but instead, when she saw the way he was looking at her, what Bella did actually feel was a sharp stab of very real fear.
‘What?’ Alan’s face had lost its colour. He looked shocked and trapped and absolutely furious.
He was coming towards her, panicking Bella into scrambling off the bed, ignoring the weakness that dizzied her. In order to reach the door she’d have to get past him. He had already bunched his fists. Bella felt sick. It was too late now to remember that other time that she had pushed so determinedly to the back of her mind as though it had never happened.
There was a knock on the bedroom door. Before Alan could stop her, Bella ran past him and opened it.
Jan was standing outside, his expression unreadable in the shadows of the landing.
Bella couldn’t bring herself to look directly at him. A feeling she didn’t recognise was spilling painfully through her. It burned her face and hurt her pride. It made her want to run and hide herself away from everyone.
‘I would like permission to use your telephone. I have to call my commanding officer.’
It was just coincidence that he should choose now to ask to use the telephone, paid for by Bella’s father when Alan’s father had refused to do so; there was no reason for her to feel she had to be grateful to him, Bella reassured herself. After all, he’d hardly bother to come to her rescue, would he? Jan had made it plain enough with those cold dismissive looks of his what he thought about her, and Bella was pretty sure that his sympathies would lie with Alan, not her.
But he had given her the opportunity to escape.
‘Yes, of course you can use it.’
She couldn’t stay here now; not when she felt so afraid of Alan. She would go to her parents and tell her mother what had happened. Her mother would know what to do.
‘Oh, Teddy, I’m so frightened. It said in the Daily Mail this morning that the Allied line had been pierced in three places.’
Teddy hugged Grace tightly, even though she was in uniform and they were standing by his ambulance.
‘Don’t worry, the RAF Advanced Air Strike Force will stop them.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t,’ Teddy assured her, but Grace wasn’t convinced.
The Germans’ advance, smashing into the Low Countries and forcing them to surrender, had been such a shock to everyone, and Luke and Charlie were both in France with the BEF. Grace prayed that they were safe, especially Luke. No one could talk of anything else but the war and their growing concern, both for the men in the BEF in France and for themselves.
‘If you ask me we’ve just got to get on with things as best we can,’ Hannah said stoutly when they were having their lunch.
‘You should try telling that to Lillian,’ said Jennifer. ‘She was in tears on the ward this morning, crying that she couldn’t cope with all the worry. You should have seen Sister’s face. She wasn’t at all pleased, I can tell you. Mind you, Lillian got away with it in the end. One of the young housemen just happened to be there and she managed to faint right into his arms. She’s been sent to the san to rest her nerves, but I reckon if there wasn’t a war on and so many nurses needed, she’d have been told to pack her bags and leave.’
‘I should think so too,’ said Hannah firmly.
‘I had a letter from home this morning,’ Doreen told them. ‘Mum says that they’ve had two Dutch refugees billeted on them.’
‘One of them wasn’t wearing a crown, was she?’ Iris joked, referring