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By Root 835 0

on the bed and walked over to the small window, looking out of it but not seeing anything other than the images forming inside her head – Kit’s face, Kit’s smile…She closed her eyes, but now she could hear his voice, soft with love, warm with laughter…and cold with rejection, she reminded herself fiercely. She opened her eyes. She must not give in to sentiment and let Kit back into her life. He had hurt her so badly…so very badly. What was to say that he would not do so again if she was foolish enough to let him? And besides, what about Lee? Lee, whom she was due to meet at the Grafton in less than a hour, she reminded herself firmly, picking up her mother’s letter and putting it back in its envelope.

The queue outside the Grafton had started to move forward. Jess reached for Ruthie’s hand and held on to it tightly. Neither of them had wanted to come here tonight, the night they had planned to celebrate Alice’s birthday, but both Ruthie’s neighbour and Jess’s parents had insisted firmly that they must.

‘It’s the only way, lass,’ Jess’s stepfather had said gently. ‘I know how much the loss of them as you worked with grieves you, Jessie girl, but sitting at home cryin’ won’t bring them back. Life is for livin’, Jess, and, ruddy hell, that’s what we all have to do these days. Look at them wot’s just gone…’

‘Don’t, Uncle Colin,’ Jess had protested, her eyes red from the hours she had spent crying.

‘Your uncle’s right, Jess,’ her mother had backed him.

‘I can’t go out dancing with them not even in their graves yet – what’s left of them,’ Jess had stormed.

‘I’m not saying that it is not right and proper that you should mourn them,’ her stepfather had told her, ‘but what I say is that from now on it’s up to you to do their living for them, Jessie. And that’s a big responsibility. But if anyone can take on that responsibility then it’s you. It will need a strong pair of shoulders to carry them with you through life, lass, and a big strong heart to go with them. The day you get wed, the day you hold your first kiddie in your arms, those days you’ll be thinking of them young lasses that will never do those things, and in a way you’ll be doing it for them and in honour of them. That’s what happens in wartime, Jess. Them wot dies can only live on in the memories and the living of them wot lives. So you just dry your eyes and go out there and dance for them all, my girl, because that’s the very best thing you can do for them.’

It wasn’t just them feeling the sombreness of what had happened, Jess acknowledged, as she looked at the shadowed expressions of the others going into the dance hall. And what about poor Ruthie, standing next to her? She might have survived but her Glen was still accused of Walter’s death. She reached for Ruthie’s hand and squeezed it.

‘I feel awful coming here,’ Ruthie told her emotionally. ‘It seems so wrong.’

‘I know,’ Jess agreed, ‘but we have to do it for Alice, Ruthie, and especially all those lost souls. How’s your mother taken it?’

Ruthie gave her a weary look. ‘She’s bin bad but not as bad as she could have bin. She hasn’t been doing any of that going out wandering around looking for Dad, but she was sitting in her chair last night, just rocking to and fro, and staring into space just like she did when we first lost Dad. She keeps asking for Glen as well. She’s got it into her head that he was at the munitions factory. She was asleep when I came out. I wasn’t going to come, but Mrs Brown said that I should.’

Jess squeezed her hand sympathetically, wondering whether or not to say what she was thinking.

‘You know, Jess,’ Ruthie told her huskily, ‘I can’t help thinking about that watch of Alice’s and how it went missing and wondering…’

Jess squeezed her hand more tightly. ‘I’ve bin thinking exactly the same thing meself,’ she admitted. ‘And you know what else? I reckon I know who stole it.’

Ruthie stared at her.

‘I’ve bin thinking about it a lot. I reckon it was Maureen.’

‘No! She wouldn’t,’ Ruthie denied, but even as she spoke she knew deep down inside herself that Jess could be right.