Page 31 of The London Girls
‘I’m sorry,’ Ava said sadly. ‘I’m sorry you married a man who’s made you scared in your own home. I’m sorry that no one but us knows the monster he can be.’
‘Ava—’
‘No,’ she said, standing and pushing out her chair. ‘You are not going to tell me to quit just because of him. If he kicks me out, then so be it. Perhaps I’d be better off without him, anyway.’
Her mother sobbed but Ava chose not to comfort her, taking her cup and plate to the sink and quickly rinsing them. She felt sorry for her mother, she did, but she wasn’t going to give up what she was doing simply because her mother was scared.
‘This was supposed to be the most fabulous year for you, Ava. I expected you to be engaged last year after your debutante ball, with a society wedding like no other to plan this year. Everything I’d dreamed of for you was supposed to happen, and now the best years of your life are being stolen from you!’
Ava turned and shook her head. ‘That’s truly what you think? That my best years have been stolen from me?’
Her mother didn’t reply, her head in her hands now.
‘I’m riding motorcycles for a job, Mother! They’re calling us the Flying Wrens, and in case you’ve forgotten, there’s a war going on! People are losing their families.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s not about me wanting to do something forbidden; I’m actually doing an important job, work that truly means something.’ She thought of Florence losing her family, and of the people all over Great Britain who had someone who wasn’t coming home. When she’d applied for the job, all she’d been able to think about was the freedom it would afford her, but now it already seemed like so much more than that.
‘Tonight I had to drive for hours to find my way to a shipyard to deliver a message to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, and then I had to find my way back in the dark,’ she said, excitement building inside her as she thought of the enormity of what she’d achieved. ‘I’ve found something I might actually be good at, something that makes me feel so alive, so full of adrenaline.’ She paused, seeing that her mother either wasn’t listening or perhaps just didn’t understand. ‘I was so scared tonight, the responsibility on my shoulders and the danger finally hitting me, but I won’t back down from this. I can’t.’
‘I’m going to bed,’ her mother said, still dabbing at her eyes as she rose, but the shrill sound of their telephone ringing made them both jump. Ava glanced at the clock and saw it was barely five a.m., and she ran to answer it, hoping it hadn’t woken her father. Who on earth would be calling at this time?
‘Hello?’
‘Ava, it’s George. I need you back here for an urgent dispatch.’
She smiled to her mother, seeing the worried look on her face. She placed her hand over the receiver for a moment. ‘Everything’s fine.’ Her mother was clearly thinking that a call at that hour had to be bad news.
‘Do you need merightnow? I was just heading to bed.’
‘You’re one of the only girls with a telephone at home,’ George said. ‘I need a message delivered urgently, and everyone else is either at home or already dispatched.’
‘All right. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
Ava hung up the phone and sighed, her eyelids so heavy she wondered how she was possibly going to stay awake. When George had told them it was a twenty-four-hour-a-day job, he clearly hadn’t been exaggerating.
‘Ava? Please tell me you’re not leaving again already?’
‘Duty calls,’ she said, bending and dropping a kiss to her mother’s cheek.
‘What will I tell your father? The phone will have woken him.’
‘Tell him the truth or make something up; it’s your decision, but you know mine.’ With that she picked up her coat in the hallway where she’d left it and walked outside, thankful it was still dark. Because as scary as night was, sometimes the morning was the most terrifying of all. Because morning was when they’d see what damage the city had suffered and wonder how they could keep surviving night after bomb-filled night.
Ava hurried down the street, the smell of smoke filling her nostrils, refusing to give in to her fears as she prepared to go and face them all over again. And as she walked, she thought of Florence and wondered just how she and Petal had got on during their first night on the job, and if it had been as horrendous as her first experience out on her bike.
I hope I have a home to come back to after this ride. Heaven help me if my father has all my belongings packed and waiting at the door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FLORENCE
‘You don’t have to go out in this,’ Jack said, his brows drawn tightly together as he stared down at her. ‘We can wait until it’s safer. No one’s forcing you to head straight out.’
‘No, we should go now,’ Florence said. ‘If we wait, people will die. They need us out there.’
‘You’re no use to them if you die.’
He didn’t need to tell her that; she well and truly knew the risks of being out there, but who would she be if she waited until it was safe? Florence looked over her shoulder, seeing the other drivers all hunched over in the cellar, waiting until the bombing abated. She turned back to face Jack.
‘People will be trapped and waiting for us to help them,’ she said. ‘I honestly don’t see that we have a choice in the matter.’
