The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves [149]
A huge lump suddenly and inexplicably formed in her throat. How had she managed to travel so far down this road, which prior to the war would have been one she would never have imagined would have any place in her life?
Kit had wept the first time they had made love. For the men who had not come back with him, for the beauty of her body and for the perfection of their love, he had told her. And she had wept too, just listening to him.
Kit. Out of nowhere the pain came and slammed into her, taking her breath, numbing her body and then ripping it apart with fresh pain.
Lee was leaning forward to kiss her breasts. Abruptly she wriggled away and then sat up.
‘I can’t,’ she told him bleakly, filled with too much guilt to be able to look directly at him. ‘I can’t do it, Lee. I’m sorry. Please take me back.’
For a moment she thought he was going to argue or, even worse, actually try to force her. She held her breath and his searching gaze, and then exhaled as he gave a brusque nod.
Ten minutes later they were dressed and ready to leave.
‘Which of them was it?’ he asked her heavily, breaking the silence. ‘My wife, or your ex?’
‘It was Kit,’ Diane admitted, uncomfortably aware that, having come this far, the existence of Lee’s wife would not have been enough to stop her. Facing up to the truth about oneself with such brutal honesty wasn’t easy, but she owed Lee that much at least.
‘I wasn’t going to tell you but I’ve had the offer of a transfer. I guess now I’ll accept it,’ he informed her.
Tears stung her eyes. Even now, a part of her wanted to turn back and tell him that she had changed her mind. The question she had to ask herself, though, was how was she going to feel when all this was over and she looked back? Which would she regret most – having an affair with him or not having one?
Only time could give her the answer to that, she told herself as Lee held open the door for her.
‘’Ere, Cedric, hang on a sec’
The two men had been the last to leave the bar, and now one of them turned into the alleyway, drunkenly intent on taking advantage of the blackout to relieve himself. He staggered forward and then recoiled as he almost stumbled over Myra’s body.
‘Ruddy hell, Cedric, bring that ruddy torch, will yer?’ he called out shakily. ‘There’s summat here.’
His companion shone the torch down the alleyway onto Myra.
‘’Ere, I don’t like this. Let’s scarper.’
‘We can’t do that. She’s still alive – look, she’s breathing. You wait here, I’ll go and get help,’ Cedric, abruptly sobering up, told his companion.
‘I can’t see no breathing. She looks like she’s a goner to me. Why don’t we—’
‘Stay here,’ Cedric repeated.
Half an hour later, when the ambulance arrived, summoned by the ARP unit Cedric had alerted, one of the ambulance crew gave a low shocked whistle.
‘She might be breathing now,’ he said, ‘but from the looks of her it’s the morgue we’ll be taking her to. Someone’s really laid into her, and no mistake.’
THIRTY-ONE
‘They’ll be putting the clocks back in another couple of weeks. I’m not looking forward to them dark nights with this blackout still going on, I can tell you.’
Diane smiled sympathetically as she listened to her landlady.
‘Going down the hospital later on to see Myra, are you?’ Mrs Lawson asked.
‘I expect so.’
Over the last few weeks, following on from the shocking news that Myra had been found up a back alley behind a seedy bar, unconscious and so badly beaten up that initially the doctors hadn’t thought she would live, they had been taking it in turns to visit Myra as often as they could.
‘Do you reckon they’ll ever catch up with that GI wot beat her up and killed that poor Walter?