Lover by Laura Wilson Page B

He was very handsome—tall, with thick, corn-coloured hair and blue eyes—and well spoken.
    I said, ‘What was it?’
    â€˜Look down.’
    It was the remains of a stocking, lacy, like an old-fashioned gas mantle where it was burned through, hot and writhing like a snake. ‘Must have been a dress shop.’ The man laughed. ‘The frocks are running away. Quite right too.’
    I looked down the alleyway and saw the most extraordinary sight: smouldering frocks, floating through the night air beside a burning shop-front, wispy and disintegrating, but keeping their shapes as they minced across the cobbles, as if they were being worn by very prim invisible women. It can’t be real, I thought. I’ve just been attacked by a stocking, and now I’m watching a disembodied tea-dance with an airman who looks like a film star. If it wasn’t for the pain in my throat and the burnt hair, I don’t think I would have believed it, because it was exactly like a dream.
    He said, ‘Do you trust me?’
    His voice seemed to come down from somewhere high up and sort of settle on me, as if the words were feathers. Shock, I suppose. I just nodded.
    â€˜You’d better let me take you to a shelter.’
    I must have nodded again, because he took my arm and led me to Soho Square. We didn’t speak, but seemed to step through the whole cacophony of bombs and guns in our own little patch of intimate silence, as if we were sealed off and the rest of the world couldn’t touch us. I knew that as long as he was with me, I would be safe. It gave me a cool, calm feeling inside—the oddest thing, like walking through a fire and knowing it can’t burn you.
    When we reached the shelter he dropped my arm and said, ‘Well, here you are.’
    Like a fool, I said, ‘Aren’t you coming in?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Oh…’
    I suppose I must have sounded dreadfully disappointed, because he took something out of his pocket and put it into my hand. ‘I want you to have this.’
    â€˜But—’
    â€˜No buts.’ He closed my fingers around a small, hard object. The feeling of his hand on mine, the warmth and strength of it, gave me a sudden rush of…what? Not happiness, but an intensity of sensation that made me feel hot inside and self-conscious, sure that he must be aware of it. Then his voice came again, as if the words were alighting on me from somewhere far above. ‘It’ll keep you safe.’
    â€˜Safe?’ The word jolted me and I suddenly saw the two of us as if from the outside; two people standing outside a shelter in the middle of an air-raid. ‘We ought to go in,’ I said.
    He didn’t move. ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘It belonged to my mother.’
    â€˜But you… You need—’
    â€˜I don’t need it. Not any more.’
    â€˜But you’re not… not…’ I faltered, not sure what I’d been going to say.
    â€˜You can wear it for me. Now then, let’s find you a place to sit down.’
    We went in, and I sat down on one of the benches. I was jolly glad he was there, because I’d have been horribly embarrassed going into a shelter full of unknown people, raid or no raid. It was pretty nasty. Dank concrete, water on the floor and a strong smell of stale bodies, but I didn’t really notice any of those things—well, apart from the smell—until after he’d gone.
    He smiled at me, clicked his heels and made a funny little bow, then said, ‘Look after it, won’t you?’
    â€˜Of course, I—’ I started to say, I promise , but he turned and walked away and left me staring after him.
    I didn’t open my hand until he’d left. It was a brooch: a dull, green stone, lozenge-shaped. Cheap-looking, not like an heirloom. Not from that sort of family, anyway. But it must be very special for him to carry it about like that. His mother