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“But…” Lily shook her head slowly. The house was dark, her parents in bed, everything locked up and shuttered tight. How could her sister be going out? “Where are you going?” she asked finally.
Sophie tossed a mischievous look over her shoulder, hazel eyes glinting. “To see the lovely Lieutenant Reese, of course.”
“What? Where?”
“We’re meeting at that pub by the Common. The Queen’s Something.”
“The Queen’s Head? But you haven’t even talked to him—”
“I sent him a note. He’d told me he was billeted on Broxash Road, with the Darbys. You know that family, the one with the girl with the spotty chin? She was a year below us in school, quite deadly dull.”
“I don’t remember…”
“I’m not surprised, she was that boring. Anyway, it was all easy enough to do.” Sophie spoke so insouciantly, as if she did this sort of thing all the time.
“But…” Lily’s head was spinning at this unexpected news. “Did he write a note back?”
“No.” Sophie shrugged, seeming deliberately careless. “But I didn’t think he would. There was hardly enough time, and anyway…” She paused, and Lily knew she was thinking of their mother, and her undoubted disapproval of such forward schemes. “I just asked him to meet me at the pub at ten.”
“But it will close by half ten,” Lily protested. “If not before.” Since the bombing had started again, evening hours of any establishment had been erratic, doors sometimes shutting at teatime if the bombing was bad or the beer ran out.
Sophie lifted one shoulder. “So?”
“Sophie…” Lily hesitated, in awe of her sister’s sheer brazenness, as well as nervous about her edgy mood. She seemed both sharp and fragile, her careless tone and shrugs hiding a seething urgency underneath that threatened to seep out, bubble over. “Don’t you think it’s a bit… forward… of you? To invite him out like that, on your own? Mother wouldn’t—”
“I don’t care about Mother.” Sophie’s face hardened before she turned back to her reflection. “We’ve got to make the most of every opportunity, Lily.” She reached for her compact, giving her face the lightest dusting of precious face powder. “Who knows how long any of us will be here?”
“The war won’t go on forever.”
“Neither will we.”
“But…” Lily watched as Sophie changed her sensible utility-issued work shoes for a pair of impractical heels she’d had before the war, the leather well-worn but serviceable. She could hardly believe her sister was actually planning to sneak out of the house to meet a man. She’d never done such a thing before, at least not to Lily’s knowledge.
Despite Sophie’s wildness, her air of mischief and her ability to shock, Lily had always felt a shared sense of innocence with her sister—they were two well-brought-up girls, raised by stern but loving parents, church every Sunday, bed at ten o’clock, teatime and evenings by the wireless and sedate walks in the Common. That was their life, not this.
It was comforting, in a way, to know there were lines even Sophie would not dare to cross, and yet here she was, striding right over them, just as she had that night at The Berkeley. It was as if she was slipping into a role and deciding it was who she really was.
“What will Lieutenant Reese think?” she wondered out loud. Would he be disapproving, or think he had reason to believe Sophie was one of those girls, the kind who melted into the shadows with a soldier, so all you could hear was their low laughter and, worse—far worse—their animal sounds of pleasure?
Lily knew it happened. It happened all the time. War made people reckless, and desperate, and bold. But surely that kind of behavior had nothing to do with them.
“Oh, Lily, don’t be such a child,” Sophie exclaimed as she dabbed a bit of “Evening in Paris” perfume on her wrists and behind her ears. “I’m twenty-three years old, for heaven’s sake. Most girls my age are married with a baby or three by now. All I’m doing is meeting an acquaintance at the local. It’s hardly the act of some brazen harlot.” She rolled her eyes, inviting Lily to share the absurdity of it, and she tried.
“I know that. It’s just… you’ve never done it before.”
“There’s always a first time, isn’t there?”
“If Mother knew…”
Sophie turned to her, eyes flashing. “But she won’t, will she?”
“I’m not going to tell her,” Lily exclaimed with affront.
Sophie gave her a quick, dazzling smile as she leaned forward to pat Lily’s cheek. “I know you wouldn’t. You’re a darling, really. Honestly, Lily, you ought to try it.”
Lily’s eyes widened. “Sneaking out?”
“Living a little. You’re so frightened half the time, unable to say boo to a goose, but I know there’s more to you than that. There has to be.”
