Wartime Brides Read Online Free

my age feeling like a silly sixteen-year-old …’
    Her voice trailed off. Crackling and buzzing came from overhead, a sure sign that something was about to be announced over the loudspeaker system.
    ‘The train’s late,’ said Edna before the station announcer had the chance to say anything.
    Sure enough they had a thirty-minute wait before the train was expected. Frozen points according to the information crackling from the overhead speakers.
    ‘I can believe it,’ said Charlotte wrapping her fur a little closer around herself. Then, seeing Edna’s envious look, she wished she’d worn something less ostentatious.
    ‘Would you like that cup of tea?’ Edna asked, taking up Charlotte’s earlier suggestion.
    Charlotte was just about to say that she would pay before realising that could hurt Edna’s pride. ‘I could certainly do with one,’ she said with a smile.
    The buffet was crowded but they managed to squeeze into a set of rickety wooden chairs that surrounded a table by the window. Smears of whitewash and the remains of sticky tape on the panes testified to the fact that it hadn’t been that long since a blackout was in force and shattered glass from exploding bombs was a real danger. But at least they were in the warm. Despite it being a fine, dry day and the sky a summer blue, the air was raw with the crispness of December.
    Cream distemper was flaking from the walls and brown painted doors were scuffed and scratched from thousands of service boots and mountains of kit bags. Despite the drab neglect, someone had made an effort to be seasonal. Faded paper chains straggled across the ceiling, their tattiness relieved here and there by a single sliver of tinsel. Obviously the decorations were of pre-war vintage but the very fact they were there at all heralded the hope that things were returning to normal.
    Tea was served in big, ugly cups that had chips around the rim. The liquid itself was weak but palatable, although the woman in charge of the sugar allotted only one spoonful per person.
    The children stayed outside, squashed against the barriers, sniffing the soot-laden air, and watching the giant, black engines steaming in and out of the station.
    Charlotte took a sip of tea then looked out of the greasy window.
    ‘Peace,’ she said plaintively. ‘Is it possible that we’ve got so used to war that we won’t be able to handle peace?’
    ‘My mother said it’s a new beginning,’ said Edna, her gaze following Charlotte’s to the smoky world outside the buffet room. ‘She said the war made us do things we wouldn’t have ever dreamed of doing before. It made the world unreal.’ She blushed, wishing she hadn’t said it. Her guilt showed too easily.
    Charlotte turned to look at her. ‘Do you believe that it’s a new beginning?’
    Edna looked nervously down into her cup. ‘I don’t know. It might be for us, but I don’t know how the men will view it. They must have got used to living dangerously, giving orders and taking orders and all that.’
    Charlotte felt for her. She shook her head. ‘But how wonderful not to take orders, not to have to duck flying bullets and explosions and goodness knows what else.’
    ‘It’s the most thrilling time so I’ve heard, that moment when you think you are about to die,’ said Edna.
    ‘I’ve heard that too,’ said Charlotte recalling the words of Doctor Julian Sands, a psychiatrist at the hospital. On one or two occasions she had turned to him for advice when dealing with some of the more difficult relationships resulting from the war. ‘Some get such a thrill from being that close to death that they can’t help courting it, daring it to try them again. The adrenalin flows. It becomes like a drug. They have to have it. They have to risk their lives, but they also risk the lives of others in the process. Some view them as heroes. Others as maniacs.’
    *
    ‘Hello again,’ said the ticket inspector as Polly showed him her platform ticket.