Page 18 of The London Girls
‘Ava!’ Olivia looked horrified. ‘You can’t say things like that! Imagine if he’d heard you?’
Ava shrugged. She’d showGeorgejust how capable women were. She might not have impressed him today like Olivia had, but it was her first time on a motorcycle, so what could he expect? By the end of their three-week training, she was going to be the best damn woman he’d ever trained, and he’d have to take back everything he’d said, or thought, about her.
‘Mother, please, if you could just listen to me—’
‘Ava, no!’ her mother cried, slamming her hands down on the table in a very rare show of anger, making the glasses rattle. ‘I will not have my daughter risking her life. It’s unacceptable. Absolutelynot!’
‘If this war doesn’t end, what do you think will happen to us?’ Ava asked, her nostrils flaring in anger as she stared at her mother, taking a few steps so she was standing at the other end of the table, her hands braced on the top. ‘Do you think we’ll be safe just because we’re in London? Haven’t you heard the news? The Germans occupy Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France now! Don’t you listen to the wireless? We’re next if we don’t do everything we can, and it’s a frightful lot better than just sitting around waiting for a bomb to fall!’
Tears filled her mother’s eyes, but Ava didn’t back down. She couldn’t. She’d come home expecting to keep everything a secret, but then she’d blurted it out as soon as her mother had questioned her about why she was home earlier than usual.
‘You can’t keep this a secret from him.’
Ava bit down on her lip, steadying herself before she answered. ‘You’d rather he know, so he can kick me out of this house as he threatened?’
Her mother shook her head. ‘It’s his house, Ava. We follow his rules, you know that.’
‘It’sourhouse, Mother!’ she cried. ‘Why does Father get to make up all the rules? Why do we have to follow so blindly? Can we not be trusted to make our own decisions or know our own minds?’
Her mother turned away from her then, leaving Ava to stand alone, her chest rising and falling as she breathed, fighting tears.
‘I should have insisted you were married the day you turned eighteen. Perhaps it would have stifled your spirited nature.’
Ava laughed, hurling words at her mother like she never had before. ‘Or perhaps you could allow Father to take his belt to me? You never did seem to mind how many times he whipped me as a girl, as if I were a disobedient horse!’
She shut her eyes a moment, wishing she’d held her tongue. She also wished she could pack a suitcase and march straight from the house, but she had nowhere to go. Not yet.
‘I’ll show them,’ she muttered, knowing that her mother would be far too afraid to say anything when her father arrived home. But it was her mother who surprised her, walking silently towards her.
‘When do you start?’
‘On Monday,’ Ava said in a low voice. ‘We receive three weeks of training before we start the job. They urgently need us working so that they can send men to dispatch jobs at the front.’
There was silence once more, and Ava stood quietly, waiting for her mother to acknowledge what she’d said, hoping she understood what was at stake.
‘And there’s nothing I can do to change your mind?’
Ava shook her head. ‘No. Nothing will change my mind. I’m doing this with or without your blessing.’
Her mother swallowed – Ava could see the movement in her throat – and then nodded brusquely. ‘Very well then.’
Ava shut her eyes for a beat, wanting to squeal in excitement but knowing that the more restrained she was, the better the reaction from her mother.
‘Thank you,’ she said, kissing her mother’s cheek, even though her mother was as stiff as a rod. But before she could step away, her mother caught her wrist, her fingers tight on her skin.
‘I won’t be the one to tell him, Ava, but if he finds out, there’s nothing I can do to protect you.’
Ava swallowed. ‘Thank you.’
Her mother dismissed her with a wave of her hand, beginning to fiddle with the table setting, which was already perfect. Ava knew it was her way of coping – that no matter what was going on outside the windows of their house, keeping order made her mother feel as though everything would be fine. So long as everything inher worldlookedperfect, all wouldbeperfect, even if her husband might hurl one of her perfectly arranged glasses or plates at the wall in a fit of anger once he was home. Ava’s father was like that; he was either the most gregarious, divine man in a room, or he was the most terrifying, and there was no way to know when he walked through a door which version one was going to receive.
Ava walked sedately to her room and quietly shut the door before falling on to her bed and clutching her pillow to her face as she screamed into it, excitement coursing through her. So long as her mother could keep her secret, in a few weeks’ time she’d be racing around London on a motorcycle, and nothing had ever sounded so exhilarating in all her life. She also couldn’t stop thinking about how many times she might be able to visit the general with her new-found freedom.
One day my father won’t even have a say in what I do.She could already see herself at the general’s side, her arm slipped through his as he showed off his second, much younger wife. The life she’d always dreamed of was within her grasp, and every time she thought about the general her heart skipped a beat.
She smiled smugly to herself.What will you say then, Father?
CHAPTER FIVE
