DAY ONE
DAY ONE
Julie
The weekend that I had leave was going to be absolutely beastly. Cold and damp, with sleet that looked as if it wasn’t going to let up for days. Didn’t matter to me, though- I was going to be warm and dry, first on the train chugging up to Scotland, then later snuggled up in my eiderdown in my familiar four-poster in my bedroom at home. I hadn’t told Mother that I was coming to visit for a few days. In my line of work, leave is never a guarantee. Wouldn’t want to get her hopes up, only to dash them later. I had planned on it being a surprise.
Good thing I didn’t tell Mother I’d be coming, because the morning that I was supposed to leave, I decided to go to Stockport, to spend my three days of leave with Maddie instead. Not sure what it was exactly that changed my mind. Perhaps it was the fact that I received a letter from Maddie the day before. I hadn’t seen her in months, not after she left Maidsend to join the ATA. I admit I was rather a mess when she left. I must’ve looked like a distraught schoolgirl, with my sniveling and grasping her hands and begging her to write at least once a week. Maddie was an absolute darling- she wrote me TWICE a week, including all of the interesting details of her life, from stories about the other pilots she met on her ferrying runs that had me laughing out loud to describing her motorbike rides and cozy nightly cocoas with her gran and granddad. I wrote back just as often, of course, but I could tell her almost nothing about what I was doing- I’m sure the censors blacked out most of it. But I loved relishing in the little details of Maddie’s life, the relative normalcy among my chaos (although we all know, nothing is REALLY normal during a war). I missed her more than anything, and absolutely lived to get her letters.
If it wasn’t receiving Maddie’s letter, maybe it was overhearing those two pilots chatting about the weather.
“Rotten weather,” one of them said. “Nearly all of the pilots in England will be grounded for two days, and that’s a low estimate. Might be more. Can’t fly in this mess.”
I knew one pilot who was going to be awfully disappointed about being grounded. Maddie LOVED flying- lived for it, really, just like I lived for her letters. That’s half of what she wrote to me about- how beautiful it was in the air, what she saw down below, how she detested being grounded even for a day. I knew that two or three days without flying would put her in a despairing mood. I could just imagine her, spending her days aimlessly wandering in and out of the house, tinkering with the engine of her motorbike, trying to knit some mittens but finding it all terribly boring. Maybe a visit from her long-lost best friend would cheer her up a bit. I know that if SHE were suddenly to show up HERE, I would absolutely break down in tears of joy.
That settled it- Scotland could wait. I left the base with one suitcase and wearing civilian clothes. It was SO nice to be in something other than my WAAF uniform- woolen hose to block out the cold, my favorite skirt and blouse from my university days, a wonderfully warm double-breasted coat that was so much more fashionable than those horrid men’s jackets that they gave us as part of our uniform, and a hat that made me look terribly dashing, if I didn’t say so myself.
I marched up to the ticket counter at the train station, gave my most charming smile to the gent behind the glass, and said “One for the next train to Stockport, please.”
Maddie
GROUNDED. I couldn’t believe that I was actually GROUNDED. And for three days at that. DRAT DRAT AND DOUBLE DRAT.
The leading officer at Barton told me to go home, to come back on Monday when the weather had cleared. Everyone knew that it was going to be a beastly weekend, sleeting and raining and just being generally wet and cold. I understand why they didn’t want us to fly- wouldn’t want to kill myself over something as trivial as sleet (it had happened before, to much more experienced pilots), but it didn’t keep me from feeling awfully blue. I rode my motorbike home and actually had to pull over behind a fence and have a good cry for a minute before carrying onward. For an ATA pilot and a former WAAF officer I can be such a BABY at times. Ridiculous.
At half-one, I was in the sitting room trying to work on a new pair of mittens. I’d never been a particularly good knitter, but it was something to do. Grandad was still at the bike shop and Gran was out visiting friends, so I had the house to myself for a few hours. Usually I wouldn’t mind having some peace and quiet, but it just made me all the more lonely. I was thinking about writing Julie again. I had already written her twice this week, but she wouldn’t think a third time was too much. She loved my letters, she told me so every time she wrote me. Hers had gotten rather strange in the past few months, half of it blacked out like it had been through the censor. Not sure WHERE she was or WHAT she was doing, but I’m sure it was something absolutely-top-secret, else she wouldn’t be censored like that. Also, I had to send my letters to her mother first, to the castle in Scotland, before they got sent to her. No clue where she was stationed- not Maidsend, to be sure!
I missed her awfully. I hadn’t seen her in months. The last time we were together was at Maidsend, before I took the train to receive my ATA training. She pulled me over to a quiet spot, where we could say goodbye privately. She was crying- I had never seen her cry like that- eyes red, face blotchy, letting her tears fall down her face without bothering to wipe them off. Just like me whenever I came under fire, but not SCARED, just SAD. She kissed me all over, from my left cheek to my forehead to my right cheek, getting her tears all over MY face, too. She said the kisses were for all the times in the coming months that she wanted to greet me with a quick peck, but wouldn’t be able to because we’d be apart (Julie almost always greeted me with a kiss on the cheek- dead affectionate, didn’t think twice about it). She kissed both of my hands and pressed them against her cheeks, then grasped them tightly and asked me to write her.
“Just once a week, that’s all. Just need to know that you’re safe and healthy. And you had better let me know if anything happens- if you get shot down or crash your motorbike or get polio or break your leg while going down the stairs. I don’t care where I am or what I’m doing, I’ll come to you if you need me. Swear I will.” Julie had connections, and I knew, just KNEW, that if I needed her, she would find a way to come to me.
I was pretending to knit and pining about Julie when I heard the knock on the door. I sighed in annoyance- it was probably one of Gran’s friends, busybody ladies who thought that it was improper for a young girl like me to be flying planes, always complaining that my hair was unruly and I wore trousers too much and that I’d never get a good lad if I didn’t care about my appearance. I could hear Julie now- “BITCHES, the lot of them. Don’t listen to a word they say. You’re perfect just as you are- I know it and you know it and everyone should know it.” At the second, more insistent knock I groaned and climbed out of the chair I was sitting in, preparing to tell Mrs. So-and-So that Gran was out for the day and to come calling again tomorrow.
However, when I opened the door I was not greeted by one of Gran’s awful friends- I was greeted by JULIE. I must’ve looked like an idiot- I blinked several times and gaped at her, my mouth hanging open, not sure if I was imagining things or not. It sure looked like her: blonde hair in a neat French chignon twist, impeccable straight white smile, red lipstick. She wasn’t wearing her WAAF uniform, but an extremely fashionable and warm-looking civilian getup.
“Fancy a houseguest for the weekend?” she asked, indicating a suitcase that she held in one hand. “Got leave for a few days and thought you might be grounded with the weather, too.”
I was still in shock. Julie HERE, at my house? In Stockport? I couldn’t believe it. Somehow I managed to motion to her to follow me inside, shutting the door behind us. Once we were in the foyer, I reached out and placed a hand on her cheek, just to make sure that she was there, REALLY there. She closed her eyes and smiled, leaning into my touch, then tilted her head and placed a kiss on my palm, soft and warm. She opened her eyes, smiled wickedly, threw off her hat, and before I knew it she had me dipped over in a Hollywood-like swoon, placing wet and smacking kisses all over my face, cheek to forehead to cheek and back again, just like she had done the last time we saw each other. Except this time, when she brought us up for air, she was laughing her loud, contagious laugh. No tears from her this time.
“I’m afraid I’ve gotten lipstick ALL OVER your face,” she half-shouted, laughing. “No worries, it matches your skin tone quite well! Perhaps I’ll let you try some of it on.”
But then she caught sight of my expression and the laughter stopped- I was trying not to blub. “Oh Maddie, darling, I didn’t mean to upset you!” She dropped her suitcase and embraced me, and I couldn’t help myself- just burst into tears and sobbed into her shoulder.
Julie glanced around, looking for a spot where we could sit. She led us to the settee in the sitting room, where she pulled me into her lap and let me cry in her arms (we must’ve looked rather ridiculous, as I’m a few inches taller than Julie). I was a mess, just like Julie when I left her at Maidsend- loud, gasping sobs, nose running, getting her nice outfit all wet with my tears. I AM SUCH A BABY SOMETIMES. She stroked my hair and kissed my cheeks where the tears fell and whispered I-don’t-know-what’s into my ear, her lips tickling the skin there. After a few minutes of crying, I calmed down enough to speak.
“Sorry, sorry! God, I don’t know what came over me. I’m not upset. Just so happy to see you that I didn’t know what to do, and that’s what came out.” I burrowed my head against her neck for a moment, breathing in her scent. She usually wore Chanel No. 5- always terribly chic and put together- but underneath the perfume she smelled like what could only be described as JULIE, a scent unique to just her. It made me feel better, anchored me back to the here and now.
Julie placed a kiss on the top of my head and squeezed my shoulders. “No apology needed,” she whispered. “You know it’s always fine if you need to cry in front of me.” I noticed that she had shed some tears of her own as well. “I knew you weren’t really upset- I would have had the same reaction, had you showed up where I was.”
“Now then, Brodatt” she said suddenly a few moments later, wiping her cheeks, straightening her shoulders, and putting on her best impression of the head WAAF officer at Maidsend (who we used to mercilessly mimic when she wasn’t present.) “We’re all done with tears. Only happy times ahead for the rest of the weekend, and that’s an order!”
That got me to laugh. I hugged her again, briefly, pressed a quick kiss against her cheek, and then climbed off her lap and pulled her off of the settee.
“If you’re planning on staying the weekend, then you best get a tour of the house. Starting first with a place to hang your coat!”
Julie
That first afternoon at Maddie’s house was the most fun I’d had in a long while, perhaps since the start of the war.
After the emotional first few minutes of our reunion, both of us were in a prime mood. Maddie hung my coat on a coatrack by the front door, and then rang her Granddad at the shop and told him that I would be visiting for the weekend. He told her that he was going to have a surprise for her when he came back- the anticipation of what it could be made us giddy (Maddie was hoping it was extra petrol so that she could take me out on her motorbike. I was rather hoping it was a cake).
She then proceeded to give me a long and rather hilarious tour of her home. She pointed out EVERY detail of EVERY room- from a story about how her Gran had acquired a particularly ugly chair for the sitting room for free (I loved it- said it had character- but Maddie obviously detested it) to how the large scratch in the kitchen wall came to be when she tried to ride her bicycle inside on a rainy day. I loved every bit of that house- I immediately felt at home there. It was SO indicative of Maddie and the young woman she had grown to be.
I loved Maddie’s room most of all. There were mementos from every stage of her life around the room: a worn stuffed rabbit and two beautiful china dolls from her childhood, some pressed flowers framed on the wall, a Girl Guides notebook, books that she had read in grammar school, a picture of sixteen-year-old Maddie astride her motorbike. I paused to look at a few photographs on her desk. There was a beautiful young woman with Maddie’s eyes and smile- her mother, who had died before Maddie could remember her. There was another of a rather dashing-looking fellow with a knockout smile and a mop of dark curls. He held a little girl on his lap; she wore a cap and a coat that looked like it was about to swallow her, but it was obviously a child-sized version of Maddie.
I looked back at her. “Your father was quite handsome. He looks absolutely besotted with you.”
Maddie touched the photograph gently and smiled. “Gran said that he was. It was just the two of us, after my mum died. We were thick as thieves, apparently. Dad died rather young too, but I remember some about him. He liked to pick me up and twirl me around when he got home from work, and he always called me his ‘best girl.’ I remember that he always smelled like cherry tobacco, with a hint of motor oil. He worked at the shop with Granddad- he was supposed to take it over, once Granddad decided to retire. I still miss him, wish he could see how I’ve turned out. Mum too. I can only hope that I made them proud.”
I touched her shoulder gently. “You did. You’ve turned into a damned amazing woman.” I meant it too, because she is the most damned amazing woman I know.
Maddie blushed at that comment- she’s modest to a fault, thinks too low of herself. She walked over to her bed and smoothed out the quilt that covered it. “We have a spare room that you could sleep in, if you want. But I was thinking…” she bit her lip, as if she was nervous about something. “If you wanted, you could bunk in here with me. The bed’s big enough for two, if you’re up to sleeping rather close together. It’ll be warmer- the spare room’s a bit drafty and damp.”
I walked beside her, pretending to do a thorough examination of every area of the bed from head to frame, lifting up the quilt, examining under the bed, so on and so forth. It made Maddie giggle, and the giggle turned into full-blown laughter when I grasped her around the waist and pulled both of us onto the bed, mercilessly tickling her side. We were acting like ten-year-old girls instead of two fearless British military officers, but neither of us cared.
“Of COURSE I want to sleep in here with you!” I said, laughing. “Wouldn’t have it any other way! We can stay up all night and tell each other our deepest darkest secrets, just like at Girl Guide camp.” We already knew each other’s secrets, of course- at least the ones that didn’t fall under the Official Secrets Act. Although I eventually told her all of those, too.
Maddie was gasping for air at this point, she was laughing so hard. I had won the battle and we both knew it. I rolled on top of her and sat up, pinning her to the bed. Tried to tickle under one of her arms and she shrieked, laughing even more.
“Of course, I might change my mind if I find you kicking me in the night.”
She laughed again. “Me, kick you? No, I expect that YOU’LL be kicking me! Maybe it’ll be ME that kicks YOU out of the room.”
We both dissolved into another fit of laughter at her pun. As we calmed down, I climbed off her and lay down beside her, throwing an arm over her stomach and nuzzling my nose into her cheek. I had never been afraid of showing physical affection to anyone, despite the fact that most people didn’t enjoy it as much as I did (the damned English are so cold and unaffectionate at times, and the Scots aren’t much better). Maddie never seemed to mind it, though, even at the beginning… by this point she was near as affectionate toward me as I was her. I kissed her cheek and squeezed her around the waist. “Couldn’t imagine spending my leave in a more wonderful way with a more wonderful person.”
Maddie looked at me and beamed. “I was just thinking the same thing. Not so sad about being grounded now.”
We were so warm and cozy on the bed that we both fell asleep right then and there, all nestled together, and didn’t wake until we heard her gran come in two hours later.
Maddie
I woke up with a start when I heard the door slam. Julie did, too. I had turned onto my side as I slept and snuggled close to her, with my arms pressed against her chest and my face against her shoulder. Her arms were still wrapped around me. We untangled from each other quickly- I tried not to look as sheepish as I felt. We hadn’t done anything wrong, but if Gran had seen us she may have thought it… improper… for two young women to be sleeping together like that. Beryl and I had slept in the same bed countless times, and other friends too, but I’d never woken up next to any of THEM like that. Rarely kissed them on the cheek, either, only when we hadn’t seen each other in a while. Seemed like I was ALWAYS kissing Julie’s cheeks, or that she was kissing mine. Or my forehead, or my hands. Sometimes it made me feel nervous- not nervous in a bad way, necessarily, but in an unusual way. A stomach full of butterflies, as Gran liked to say.
Sometimes, late at night as I lay in bed, I imagined what it would be like to kiss her on the lips, just like Beryl had admitted that she had done with Harry, a classmate of ours from school. For some reason, I didn’t feel dirty imagining it with Julie, even though I know it should’ve (I’d heard rumors about “those sort” of women, whispered about by the other girls in the WAAF, but never discussed openly). I had tried imagine kissing a few times before, with boys from my class when I was younger, but it felt strange whenever I did, like something just wasn’t quite right. But not about her- about us. I would never, ever say anything to her, though. EVER. I knew that she didn’t feel the same way about me, couldn’t. Julie liked men, loved flirting with them and dancing with them. And she was so beautiful, and was always the center of attention. Although she HAD confessed, to my surprise, that she’d never had a boyfriend (“the problem of going to all-girls’ schools your whole life”), and had only ever kissed two lads. The first was a classmate of her brother Jamie’s at Eton who had come to visit their castle when she was around 15, and she said it was an absolutely awful experience. “Spit ALL OVER my face, then tried to stick his tongue down my throat. Nearly choked me to death. Yeccchh.” (Julie was never one to spare the more embarrassing or disgusting details- she gave too much information where other girls would have demurred). The second was a Polish pilot at Maidsend, who she said was considerably better. She never took it any farther, though, because she found him to be “frightfully boring.” Otherwise, she claimed to be too busy to pursue a relationship. I wasn’t sure how much she actually wanted to be in a relationship, really- she seemed to love the flirting and the leadup, “the game” as she called it, but always seemed to lose interest before it got physical.
When Julie and I began to get close, I had never kissed anyone, ever, and it had been her mission when we were both at Maidsend to set me up with one of the pilots. “You don’t have to MARRY him, just kiss him!” she said. She fancied me with Kim Lyons, the vicar’s boy who wouldn’t dance and who I liked to talk about maps with. I thought it was a lost cause- if he wouldn’t dance with me, surely he wouldn’t kiss me! And I really wasn’t that interested in kissing him at all, to be honest. But to my shock, one night we were jawing on about maps and planes as usual, when he just leaned in and kissed me. I tried to kiss him back, at least at first, because I thought I was supposed to, but it just didn’t feel right- his saliva got all over my face, his tongue felt like a giant slug writing around in my mouth, and his cologne was cloying. I pulled away, thanked him (thanked him? What was I thinking?), and immediately ran off like a shy schoolgirl. I told Julie all about it immediately (of course- she would have been horribly offended if I hadn’t), and she was INCREDIBLY sweet and reassuring. “The first kiss is usually awful, everyone I know says so. Just need to wait for the right person, then you’ll have quite a bit of fun,” she said, rubbing my shoulder and wiping my cheeks (I am SUCH a dratted BABY- crying over a failed first kiss. Surprised anyone keeps me around).
Gosh- got a bit off track didn’t I?
Once Gran and Granddad got home, Julie and I helped Gran prepare dinner. Gran was thrilled to have a guest, especially that the guest was Julie. “Maddie talks about you always” she said, which made me blush the color of a tomato and which prompted Julie to respond that the pleasure was really hers, that I was always telling HER about THEM.
We had a wonderful dinner- Julie was a superb guest, asking them loads of questions about what I was like growing up, laughing raucously at their stories, and sharing some of her own. I could tell she was being a bit reserved with the name-dropping that she sometimes gave- didn’t want them to think that she was unapproachable (as if anyone could ever think that). We sat at the dinner table for over an hour, then moved to the sitting room for two hours more in front of the fire. It was lovely.
Granddad’s surprise turned out not to be cake (REALLY, where did Julie think he was going to get a cake in wartime?), but petrol that he got off the black market so that we could take my motorbike out for a picnic the next day. I was ecstatic, jumped up and gave him a massive hug and kiss. Gran had somehow managed to come across an extra loaf of bread for sandwiches, and was going to give us some pickled onions and a thermos of tea to take along for the picnic, just like when Beryl and I went the time we saw Dympna crash her plane. The weather would be awful, but we both vowed to put that aside and make it absolutely the best day ever.
We were both dead tired by bedtime, but didn’t go to sleep for a while yet. I was in such a fantastic mood that I even let Julie have a go at my eyebrows with her tweezers. She had wanted to pluck them for ages- “You’ve got absolutely GORGEOUS brows, a wonderful natural shape, they just need a bit of taming!”- and she delightedly sat cross-legged in front of me on my bed and plucked them for 30 minutes. “PERFECT” she pronounced once she had finished. “You’re a knockout anyway, but you’re just a more refined knockout now.” She declared that tomorrow night she was going to do my makeup. I groaned in mock annoyance, but was secretly excited at the prospect.
We both changed into our nightwear after she had finished with my brows. No WAAF men’s-issue pajamas for us tonight. I had a drab flannel nightgown, the same one I’d worn since I was 15. Quite embarrassing to wear in front of people, but it was warm and comfortable. Julie, of course, had expensive-looking silk pajamas, but she declared that she would much rather wear a nightgown like mine, and she bullied me into giving her one of my extras. It was a bit long for her in the arms- she had to roll up the sleeves- but she somehow managed to make the ill-fitting nightgown look pretty and feminine. She had a way of making ANYTHING she wore look pretty and feminine.
I lounged under the covers and watched as she let her hair down from its prim chignon and let it flow down her back. She took out her hairbrush and began to brush out the tangles.
“I always wanted hair like yours.” I said jealously. “I can never DO anything with mine.” My hair could really be a pain in the rear. Too short and I looked like a poodle, too long and I could never get the tangles out. Terribly boring. And during humid days, it really seemed to take on a life of its own.
Julie did her hair into a loose plait. “You stop. Your hair is lovely and you know it. If you want in on a secret, I’ve always wanted curls.” She turned out the light and climbed in next to me in bed. “There’s no use in pining over what you can’t change. You’re perfect just as you are- don’t let anyone tell you that you aren’t.”
I turned on to my side (my normal sleeping position), and could feel her warmth at my back. She squeezed my forearm, kissed my shoulder, buried her face in my hair for a moment before pulling away and settling down for sleep. The last thing I remember her saying before I fell asleep will stay with me forever: “Goodnight, Maddie, my love.” Her love. Me.