DAY TWO
DAY TWO
Maddie
I didn’t care that the weather was absolutely beastly- Julie and I were going on a motorbike ride, no ifs-ands-or-buts about it.
Gran made us breakfast that morning (Julie pronounced it “superb,” even though there wasn’t any butter for the toast and we had to split an egg), and packed us a small picnic lunch. Gran thought I was crazy to want a picnic, but I had been envisioning a picnic with Julie for months, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I knew of an abandoned barn that we could stop in to eat- it would do to keep the sleet off of us, and because it would be cold I DID bring a nice warm blanket to wrap around ourselves as we ate. Granddad had the petrol all ready for us, too. It would be a WONDERFUL afternoon, I would make sure of it.
Julie wore her own blouse, but I made her wear one of my skirts and a couple of my old jumpers- her clothes were all NICE, and I hated for them to get ruined in the mud and sleet (I remember how mad Beryl’s dad was when she ruined her best skirt, and it wasn’t even sleeting then!).
“You’re being ridiculous,” Julie scoffed. “You should know by now that I’m not afraid of getting dirty.” But she went along with it, her reason being that she’d never had a sister to share clothes with, so this felt like the closest thing. No stockings for either of us, even though Julie had brought a pair and I had a pair at home- stockings were hard enough to come by, and I wouldn’t risk us ruining them on the ride. Bare shins and cold legs for us, then!
Julie INSISTED on helping me tinker with the bike before we took it out. I jokingly gave her a hard time about it at first- “Her Ladyship is willing to get her lily-white hands dirty? Really?” (I only did it because I knew that she was most certainly willing to get her hands dirty) and Julie gave my arm a good pinch and called me a rather nasty name before jumping right in and doing everything I told her to do. I can’t explain how happy I was then, telling my absolute favorite person in the world about how one of my favorite things in the world worked. I wanted to burst with joy and love, and from the way Julie looked at me and beamed, I could tell that she felt the same way. “Two peas in a pod, we are,” she once said, and I had never felt it more than I did in that moment.
“Right, then” I said as I climbed on the bike and patted the seat behind me. “You go right here. Just put your arms ‘round my waist and hold on tight the whole time- wouldn’t want you to go flying off into a puddle!” Julie laughed and climbed on, and grabbed me so tight that I could hardly breathe. “Not THAT tight you idiot, you’ll kill me!” She laughed and loosened her grip, but not by much.
Our bare legs were touching, and I could feel her breasts pressed against my back. Very intimate, and I found myself getting that strange feeling again, deep in my stomach and lower still, in areas that I never thought about or explored. “Get a grip on yourself!” I thought, trying to focus on driving the bike and not these other… distractions. Which shouldn’t even have been distractions- I was the one making myself distracted by them!
I put on my trusty goggles, then glanced back at Julie. “No goggles, for you, I’m afraid. If you feel like you’re getting sleet or mud or bugs in your eyes, you can just press your face against my back. I work quite well as a shield, Beryl says.”
Julie laughed gleefully. “You underestimate me, Maddie Brodatt! I’ll be perfectly fine. And I don’t want to miss the view! I’ve heard you talk about it enough- I want to see it for myself!”
I reached back and rubbed her knee as a thank-you, and then- WE WERE OFF! Out of Stockport and into the country. Even though it was sleeting like mad, it was marvelous. I took Julie to all of my favorite haunts- up the Dark Peak, round to the place where we saw Dympna Wythenshaw crash her plane, then to the old barn where we would have our lunch. I hadn’t had much of a chance to talk with Julie throughout the ride- the bike is LOUD, and we had to shout. I just shouted to point things out, so she would know where we were, or why we were riding by a particular place. She would shout back, saying how beautiful it was, how happy she was. Things like that.
“Look at us!” Julie said when I turned off the bike. We did look a bit silly- skirts up around our thighs (luckily no one was there to see us!), sleet all over our jackets and skirts, mud all up our calves. “Isn’t this WONDERFUL?” She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “That was one of the most fun things I’ve done in a while. I was almost in tears when we rode up the Dark Peak. It’s just as beautiful as I’d imagined. Thank you!”
I couldn’t help but blush at that!
The barn was a nice place to stop for lunch. Kept all the sleet off us, and although it was still cold, we huddled under the woolen blanket that I packed, which kept us quite warm.
After lunch, Julie sighed contentedly and snuggled next to me under the blanket, grabbing my hand and twining our fingers together. “This is one of the most wonderful afternoons of my life, Maddie darling,” she said. “I couldn’t be more happy that it’s with you.”
I squeezed her hand. “I was just thinking the same thing. Two peas in a pod, we are.”
She laughed. “When this damned war is over, I want you to teach me how to drive your motorbike. I’m a fast learner, I promise.”
I was a bit startled by that statement- not by the fact that she wanted to learn how to drive the motorbike, but by the fact that in the whole history of our friendship, this was the first time that Julie had ever mentioned “after the war.” We had always talked about our pasts, or what was happening in the present, but never, ever the future. It was too fragile, too unknown. Better just to leave thoughts of the future unspoken.
But since SHE was the one who brought it up… I did want to talk about the future. I wanted to talk about it with her, my very best friend, because I didn’t feel as if I could talk about it with anyone, not Gran or Granddad, not other ATA pilots, no one. No one except Julie.
“Remember when we went out on the bicycles at Maidsend and told each other all of our fears?”
Julie nodded. “Yes, of course. Could never forget that- it’s the day I realized that you were my best friend. One of the most important days in my life.”
I smiled at that. “Well, I have another top-ten fear. It’s rather silly, but... I’m afraid of the war ending. Not that I don’t want it to end, that I won’t be trilled when it does and England is safe again. But, I’m afraid of what will happen to me.”
Julie looked puzzled. “What do mean by that?”
I brought our intertwined hands on to the top of the blanket and examined them, my rough fingers with her dainty, manicured ones. They couldn’t look more different from one another, yet they fit together perfectly. I stroked her thumb with my own, up and down, up and down.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do when the war ends. I’ve done a lot of things, but NONE that will help me after it’s over. Can’t be a radio operator, won’t be needed anymore. Can’t be a pilot- I don’t have my own plane, so I couldn’t even give lessons or joyrides, like Dympna did. I’ve only got a grammar school education- no money for uni, either. Gran wants me to take a typing course, so that I could be a secretary, perhaps down at Ladderall Mill, or if I’m lucky maybe in a law office in Stockport or Manchester.” I signed sadly. “But I don’t want to be a secretary! That’s not my purpose. I have purpose in the war- flying planes, THAT’S my purpose! But once the war’s over, that’s done. Don’t know how often I’ll have the chance to fly, after this is all through.” Made me want to cry just thinking about it. “What do you think you’ll do?” I asked Julie. “Go back to Oxford? Or Scotland?”
Julie was oddly quiet- it took her a while to come up with an answer. “To be honest I haven’t really thought about it. I don’t like thinking that far ahead. Things are just so precarious right now.” I knew she was referencing her new secretive, probably dangerous, role, whatever it was. She couldn’t tell me, but I knew that she wanted me to take the hint. She looked at me. “I’m not sure about going back to Oxford, though- I’m much different than I was before the war. Things that used to be important aren’t so important to me anymore, and things that didn’t used to matter mean the world to me now. You, for instance. I didn’t know you before the war started, but now… I don’t think I could go on after it’s all over without you being a major part of my life.”
I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat at her mention of how much I meant to her. I had often wondered how our friendship would continue once the war was over. We were from two completely different worlds. I was from a world of motor oil and engines and working class bike shops, she was from a world of silk ball gowns and castles and royalty. How would these two worlds meet, when they were so clearly supposed to be apart? The war had mixed things up, had allowed the two of us to become the best of friends, but when it was over, were we expected to just forget about one another, to pretend that our two worlds hadn’t met in a beautiful and profound way?
It was Julie’s turn to examine our fingers. “Wherever I am, I want it to be with you. We’ll think of something- maybe I could get a flat in Stockport to be near you and your grandparents, or we could find a place together somewhere else. I don’t know what we’ll do, but we could decide that later. Just want to make sure that we’re together…” She glanced back at me. “But only if you want it, too.”
I looked down at my lap, suddenly shy. All of this was hard to comprehend- Julie would be willing to live in STOCKPORT, which was most certainly NOT a metropolitan center of excellence, to be close to me. I took a moment to gather my thoughts, and then willed myself to look back at her.
“Of course I want that, more than anything,” I whispered. “But what will others think? I’m not… I’m not posh, you know that.”
Julie reached up and placed a hand on my cheek. “You of all people should know that I’ve never given a damn about whether you’re “posh” or not, and that I couldn’t care less of what other people think about me… or about us. I just care about you and me being together, that’s all.”
She was staring intently at me. If I was braver, I would have leaned in and kissed her. But I wasn’t brave- I didn’t know what she would think. I didn’t want to ruin the moment. And so I didn’t kiss her, although I desperately wanted to.
Instead I leaned against her and put my head on her shoulder. We sat like that for a while, hands clasped, breathing in unison. Two peas in pod. The very best of friends.
Julie
The day we took Maddie’s motorbike out for the picnic was one of the absolute best days of my life. I didn’t care that it was sleeting the whole time (except for about five minutes- a divine intervention, I would say), or that it was cold- the whole trip was absolutely wonderful. I finally was able to see for myself the setting of so many of Maddie’s stories- where Dympna had gone down in her plane, where Maddie and her Girl Guide troop camped on the week-end, where Maddie had gone of the road on her motorbike when she was sixteen and broken her collarbone. The picnic was just the cherry on top of a wonderful day- the food was simple and wonderful, and it was an absolute delight to be warm and cozy under the blanket with my best friend. For much of the day, I was even able to forget that there was a war on- I felt like a civilian again, which was supremely wonderful.
After another rousing dinner with Maddie’s gran and granddad (I SO wished that they were my grandparents! My own grandparents were fine, of course, but both my grandfathers had died long before I was born, and my grandmothers were both sweet but slightly distant dowagers who were content to watch children from afar- much different than Maddie’s lovely gran, who kissed my cheek when I came in and insisted on hanging up my coat), Maddie and I made our way up to her room to close out the evening. We took turns in the bath- it was SO wonderful to have a long, relaxing bath! Much better than at the barracks, where you’re made to take a cold shower surrounded by twenty other naked girls. It had been SO LONG since I had a good bath, and I loved every second of it.
After my bath, I let Maddie brush out my hair. It was long, down to my waist, and it had gotten quite tangled during the day. I thought she wouldn’t have the patience to work with it, but Maddie stated that she adored my hair and couldn’t get enough of touching it (I would say the same thing about hers- she took a brief nap in the barn and laid her head in my lap, and I stroked her hair all the while. I loved her curls). She continued brushing even after all the tangles were out, and it felt SO GOOD. It was so wonderful to be a bit pampered, even in the small ways of a hot bath and having someone else brush your hair and massage your scalp.
“What time do you need to be back tomorrow?” she asked. I noticed that she did not specify WHERE I needed to be back to… smart girl, Maddie.
“I need to be back by six sharp. I suppose that means I’ll leave here ‘round ten then, after breakfast.” I sighed glumly. “I wish I didn’t have to go back, though. If I could I would just stay here forever. Would your gran and granddad mind taking on a boarder?”
Maddie laughed. “I’m sure they’d love it, if the boarder was YOU! They adore you, you know.”
I blushed. “Oh, they flatter me. I adore them just as much. Not nearly as much as I adore you, though.” I then watched HER blush. I kissed her on the cheek as I got up and made my way to the bed. I was wearing Maddie’s old nightgown again. I LOVED it. Wonderfully comfortable and warm, but the thing I loved best was that it smelled like her. I loved the way Maddie smelled- just the slightest trace of motor oil, a slight whiff of the soap she always used, but mostly something else that I could only describe as being purely MADDIE.
We climbed in bed next to each other, dressed just alike. Two peas in a pod. We had planned on staying up a bit and talking, so Maddie had pulled down the blackout curtains over the windows and left the lamp beside the bed on. We talked about nonsense for a while- the time when I taught her to foxtrot at Maidsend and she stepped all over my feet; the time when I unexpectedly started my cycle three days early (we were in the canteen, of all places, when I discovered it, where ANYONE could have seen), and Maddie saved me from utter mortification by discreetly rushing around Maidsend to find me sanitary towels and clean knickers and a skirt; Maddie’s awful first kiss with the vicar’s boy when she came to me crying afterwards (we found it funny later, but when it happened she was dreadfully upset). It was so nice, to just reminisce, to remember the lighter times amidst the difficulty of war.
Maddie grew quiet, and I assumed that she dozed off. However, then I heard the sniffles, and realized that she was crying. I sat up in bed.
“What’s wrong, darling?” I asked, rubbing her cheek with the back of my hand. “You grew awfully blue all of a sudden.”
She smiled at me through the tears. “Sorry- just got sad thinking about the fact that you’re leaving tomorrow. It’s been an absolute joy to have you stay. Wish you didn’t have to leave. I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”
I cupped the back of her head in my hand and smiled back at her. “You’ll get on, just like you always do. We’ll keep writing letters every week- those letters are what keep ME going, I assure you. You’ll fly your planes. You’ll keep your gran and granddad company.” I twined my fingers in her curls. “And just know that what I said when you left Maidsend remains true. If you need me, for whatever reason, I’ll come to you. Some way, some how, I’ll come to you. I promise.” That promise was the most dangerous thing I’d ever said, but also the most honest. I would be in a world of trouble if I left my duties (court martial, dishonorable discharge, prison), but the ONLY person in the world I would do it for was Maddie. And I’d do it for her in a heartbeat, without thinking twice. Was so in love with her that I’d do it.
And then I realized I’d said the last bit out loud. “I’m so in love with you.” SHIT. I hadn’t meant to say that. How mortifying. I felt myself growing hot, wanted to up and leave. But there was nowhere to go.
Maddie didn’t look repulsed, though, as I was afraid she would. She looked… peaceful. Happy, with a hint of a smile. She whispered, dead quiet, “I love you, too.” She placed her hand on my cheek. “Julie, I… I’m in love with you too. So much it makes my heart want to burst.”
I felt the tension leave my body in rivers. I felt filled up with something completely new- joy, with a hint of nervousness. “Do you really? For how long?”
She got chocked up again, and nodded. “Yes. For… a while now.”
I stroked the back of her head again. “And today, in the barn… did you want to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss you?”
Another nod.
And then it happened, the event I’d longed for for so long. We both moved in at the same time, lips touching softly. It was careful, and slow, and a bit timid. No gasping open mouths, no tongues jutting in and out, no lip movement really. Just a gentle kiss. We pulled back at the same time and smiled shyly at one another. Maddie ducked her head down into my shoulder.
“Hey,” I whispered, close to her ear. “Want to leave it at that or do you want to continue?”
I could feel her smile against my shoulder, through the fabric of the nightgown. “Continue,” she whispered.
And so we continued. It was slow, at first. Both of us were quite new to it, quite new to each other in this fashion, really. I rolled on top of her and kissed her lips for a while, gently biting her lower lip, SLOWLY meeting her tongue with mine (really, Jamie’s friend from Eton should’ve gotten a lesson from me- it’s quite a wonderful sensation when done correctly). She loosened my hair from its plait and ran her hands through it, ‘til it was long and loose down my back. Ran her hands all over my back- it felt HEAVENLY. I moved from her lips to her ear, which made her gasp, then on to her neck. Touched different places on her body, always asking permission first. Once I started she opened up a bit and was less tentative, touched me in the same spots that I was touching her. Finally, after I was getting QUITE hot and bothered, I whispered that I was going to take my nightgown off, just partially. I unbuttoned the top half and shrugged it off of my shoulders- I was completely naked at the waist. A bit cooler, plus it gave easier access to certain parts that I was dying for her to touch. And touch them she did, in more ways then one. Then she shrugged off her nightgown and I did the same to her. We switched positions quite a bit- sometimes I was on top and in control, sometimes she was. It was a bit like dancing- an odd form of dancing, but similar all the same.
I don’t know how long this went on- quite a while. Finally, we both realized that we were just absolutely exhausted. We made ourselves “decent” again- nightgowns back on and buttoned up. We decided to fall asleep in each others’ arms. I had never been so happy in my life. Before we went to sleep, I heard Maddie give a little laugh.
“What are you so giddy about?” I asked.
“You were right,” she whispered. “After I was so upset about Kim, you said the first kiss is always awful. Once you find the right partner, it’s quite fun. And you’re right- that was quite enjoyable after all.”
I gave her a quick peck on the lips so that she knew I agreed. We both fell asleep with a smile on our faces. The perfect end to a perfect day.