The Summer of Secrets

by Barbara Hannay

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Emily admitted. ‘I think, in time, he’ll adjust.’

  ‘This Chloe Brown will have her work cut out for her, trying to please him.’

  ‘I have every faith in her.’ Emily hoped she wouldn’t have to eat her words.

  ‘I’d like to meet her,’ Izzie said.

  ‘Oh.’ This was unexpected. Remembering Chloe’s interest in Izzie, Emily was suddenly nervous again. She was imagining the story Chloe might write about her mother, dredging up all the World War II heroics and, no doubt, reminding the entire district of the source of Robbie’s inspiration to join the Air Force. But she could hardly back down now. ‘I’m sure that can be arranged,’ she said, crossing her fingers.

  To Emily’s relief, Izzie was happy to talk about other things. The local singing group had visited as part of the home’s entertainment program, and Tammy, the hairdresser, still came on Wednesday afternoons to cut the residents’ hair or paint nails or generally cheer folk up, even though she was so worried about her missing boyfriend.

  Afternoon tea arrived next and there was a cup for Emily as well. After they’d drunk their tea and eaten a tiny shortbread biscuit, Emily helped her mother out of bed. Izzie wheeled herself the short distance to the bathroom, but this process took quite a while and by the time she was back in bed, she was tired.

  It was time to say goodbye.

  ‘See you soon,’ Emily said, kissing her.

  ‘Goodbye, dear.’

  Emily was at the doorway when her mother spoke again.

  ‘Emily.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You mustn’t stew so much over Alex. It’s not good for you and it’s not going to change him.’

  Her mother could well be right, Emily thought with a sigh. ‘I’ll try.’ Forcing a smile, she wondered what her mother would say if she knew about Rolf.

  As she walked out of the carefully sanitised home and into fresh air and sunshine, she wondered also about her mother’s long years of widowhood. Had Izzie ever taken lovers? Emily would never ask, but she wouldn’t have been surprised if her mother had spent those years in stoical abstinence.

  Izzie had always been incredibly tough and independent. Emily supposed she’d been born that way.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Cambridgeshire, England, 1927

  ‘Jem! Jem, wait for me!’ Seven-year-old Izzie Oakshott screamed at the top of her lungs as she raced towards her big brother, tearing across the long field that stretched behind their family’s home. ‘Jem, don’t go without me!’

  Tall and broad shouldered, with red-gold hair that glinted in the morning sunlight, Jem was standing beside his beloved Gipsy Moth aeroplane and pulling on his leather flying helmet. At any moment now, he would climb into the cockpit, don his goggles and take off, and Izzie would be too late.

  ‘Jem!’ she screamed again, even more desperately. ‘Wait! I want to come too!’

  Izzie loved nothing better than to fly in her brother’s plane. For her, it was even more exciting than driving in Jem’s sports car and usually, as long as she found him in time, he was pretty good about letting her take off with him on short jaunts. He seemed to understand that his skinny, curly-haired youngest sister was as passionate about flying as he was.

  ‘Does Mother know you’re down here?’ Jem asked as Izzie arrived, breathless and panting.

  Izzie hadn’t stopped to ask for her mother’s permission, but she reasoned that she’d been yelling so loudly, someone in the house was bound to have heard her. Surely that meant that Mother would know where she was?

  Izzie nodded. ‘Yes, she knows.’

  For a long moment that was agonising for Izzie, Jem looked doubtful, and he studied her with narrowed eyes, as if he were assessing her honesty. She met his gaze with a steady, resolute stare and behind her back, she crossed her fingers. To her relief, Jem smiled at her, making creases around his hazel eyes.

  He set down his helmet and goggles. ‘Come on then. Jump in.’

  Izzie grinned ecstatically as his strong hands gripped her under the armpits and lifted her high. A moment later she was scrambling into her seat in the Gipsy Moth’s front cockpit.

  A cushion to prop her up so that she could see over the side was already in place from her last trip. So were the spare helmet and goggles and she pulled the helmet on, strapping it expertly under her chin, conscious that her beaming grin revealed a humiliating gap where her front teeth used to be. She was tired of being the littlest in the family and she couldn’t wait for her new, grown up teeth to arrive.

  ‘All set?’ Jem asked as he helped her to tighten the goggles.

  Still grinning, Izzie held up two thumbs.

  ‘Righto.’ Giving her a pat on her bony shoulder, he went to the front of the plane and spun the propeller.

  The engine roared to life, making a clattering racket, as Jem took a quick step back then climbed into his cockpit.

  Izzie sat very still, trying to curb her excited impatience as he went through his pre-flight checks. Aeroplanes were still quite a novelty, not just for her family, but for people all over England.

  Her father had a successful motor car business and Izzie, along with her sisters, loved to hear their mother tell the story of how this had started when he’d taken her on a honeymoon trip to Paris.

  ‘Your father was stunned to discover how advanced the French were with their internal combustion engines,’ she would tell them with one of her pretty dimpling smiles. ‘He almost forgot about me.’

  The girls were sure this wasn’t true. Their father might be mad about motor cars, but he doted on their mother. They only had to watch the way he smiled at her, his dark eyes shining with love.

  Even so, he had been inspired to come home to England and start his own business. He’d opened a tiny garage with just two cars at first, but the business had taken off like a rocket. These days he had quite a grand car sales and service centre with Rolls-Royces, Daimlers and Bugattis and he planned to start selling aeroplanes soon.

  With their father’s huge interest in cars and planes, no one in the family, except their mother, had been surprised when Jem learned to fly soon after he’d finished his engineering studies at Cambridge. Jem had earned his flying licence just a year ago, and a couple of months later he’d bought his own beautiful Gipsy Moth.

  Mother had been quite shocked when he’d flown home and landed his plane in the field at the back of the house, tethering it to a fence post, as if it were nothing more than a newfangled horse.

  ‘I really don’t like the idea of you flying, Jem,’ she had said at luncheon on that very same day. ‘It was worrying enough when you were racing all over the countryside in that Austin of yours. Flying has to be so much more dangerous.’

  Normally, their mother was unfailingly gentle and uncomplaining, especially towards Jem, her eldest child and her only son. The girls knew she adored him, so the fact that she expressed such displeasure showed them how very worried she must have been.

  Their father, however, had staunchly defended Jem’s purchase. From the other end of the long dining table, he frowned at his wife. ‘Now, now, Vi, you know aeroplanes and flying are the way of the future. This is a very important and exciting day for Jem. Don’t spoil it, sweetheart.’

  Daddy said this gently, and added one of his special smiles just for their mother. A moment later, she wiped her tears with the corner of her handkerchief and managed a small, answering smile. Their gazes held, enjoying a moment that Izzie recognised as another of those private, understanding exchanges that passed just between her parents. Seeing it always made her feel safe and happy.

  Perhaps Mother might have said something more, but Daisy, the maid, arrived to clear their plates and to serve dessert of peach shortcake and cream. Mother made no further comments about Jem’s plane and she hadn’t made a fuss a week later when Izzie had begged to be allowed to fly with Jem as his passenger. Since then, Mother had seemed to accept the inevitable and Izzie had enjoyed the pri
vilege of travelling with her brother on several exhilarating flights.

  Now, she wriggled in her seat with excitement as the Gipsy Moth rolled forward – taxiing, Jem called it – to the far end of the field. Then, smoothly, steadily, the plane lifted off, rising magically over the white flowering hawthorn hedge that bordered the field, and climbing higher and higher.

  Izzie saw the red-tiled roof of their tall white house and the orchard and tennis courts way down below, getting smaller and smaller. She saw their dog, Hector, just a tiny black and white speck, scampering back and forth and no doubt barking up at them.

  Giggling, she waved to the dog and they flew on over the patchwork of neighbouring countryside that looked so different and beautiful from way up here. For Izzie, being high in the air like a bird was the best thing in the world, even when she was dressed in a thin summer frock in an open cockpit with no cover, and soon shivering.

  ‘Everything fine in the front?’ Jem called, his voice coming through her helmet’s earphones, thanks to a tube that was linked from his pilot’s cockpit to hers.

  ‘Yes!’ Izzie shouted back. She wouldn’t dream of complaining about the cold. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To Newmarket.’

  ‘Ooh, goody.’ Last time they’d gone to Newmarket, a journey that happened surprisingly quickly when you flew, Jem had bought her a dish of ice-cream with chocolate sauce and a cherry on top.

  They weren’t away long. Jem had some banking business to attend to in Newmarket and, while he was busy, Izzie waited patiently on a little bench in the foyer. She didn’t mind waiting. She had a view through a big plate glass window to the street and she quite liked to watch the people walking past. It was fun to make up stories about them.

  The young woman hurrying quickly with a worried frown could be a princess in disguise, trying to escape her wicked uncle. The old lady with the hooked nose and dressed all in black was obviously a witch and Izzie was careful not to make eye contact with her when she glanced though the window. She didn’t want to risk being turned into a toad.

  The round red-faced man clambering down from his mud-splashed truck was most likely a farmer whose hens laid magic eggs. But before Izzie could imagine any more wondrous scenarios, Jem arrived and took her to a café where she had her yummy dish of ice-cream. After that, they flew home again, taking off from a parking spot on a little back road that no one used very much.

  Again, Izzie was captivated by the thrill of take-off, by the sense of breaking free and rising, rising, watching the rooftops and treetops of Newmarket fall away. It was a lovely blue-sky afternoon and she could see for miles. In her imagination, she could almost see all the way to London.

  She pictured Jem taking her to the big city and flying past the King’s palace. If she closed her eyes, she could picture King George standing at his palace window, waving to her with a bright-red, white and blue handkerchief like the Union Jack.

  What fun!

  The plane was coming into land, flying lower and lower, when Izzie saw the strange big vehicle, like a van, parked in front of their house. Two men were carrying a stretcher from the house to the van and there was someone on it, covered by a white sheet.

  Izzie gasped. Her chest tightened and burned. ‘Who’s that?’ she yelled into the speaking tube to Jem. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he replied.

  He didn’t say any more, but he’d sounded worried. Izzie didn’t ply him with questions. She was suddenly, inexplicably, too scared to ask. Young as she was, she sensed that something bad had happened. Besides, Jem needed all his concentration to focus on landing. Even so, it was the bumpiest landing he’d ever made.

  As soon as the plane shuddered to a standstill, he disembarked in record time, hauling off his helmet and goggles and helping Izzie with hers. Then he lifted her out, set her down on the grass and took off, running towards the house, not waiting for her.

  Izzie had no hope of keeping up with Jem’s long legs, and his haste frightened her. Clearly he was very worried indeed. He didn’t go into the house, but ran around the side, past the tennis courts to the gravel drive at the front.

  By the time Izzie arrived, the stretcher had disappeared and the van’s big doors were shut. Izzie’s father was there, looking white as a ghost, and Jem was talking to him and two other men, both strangers, while her three sisters were clustered on the front porch, clinging to each other, weeping and looking scared.

  Izzie skidded to an abrupt standstill. Her heart pounded in her chest as she stood, panting, taking in this scary scene, knowing there was one very important person missing.

  Mother.

  Surely she wasn’t the person on the stretcher?

  At first, Izzie couldn’t bring herself to move. Everyone else looked so very distressed and distracted and she didn’t know who to turn to. Then Jem must have remembered her.

  He looked back over his shoulder and saw her. ‘Izzie,’ he said softly and his eyes were round with sorrow and his mouth was all twisted out of shape, but he held out his arms to her and she ran to him. ‘Oh, Izzie.’

  She clung to Jem’s waist, felt the metallic bump of his belt buckle, the soft tweed of his jacket, the deep shudder within him.

  ‘What’s wrong, Jem? What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s Mother.’

  Izzie wailed, pressing her face into his chest.

  Now her sisters were there, too. Fourteen-year-old Betty was clinging to Jem’s arm and sobbing on his shoulder. Vera, the eldest girl, patted Izzie’s back as if she were a baby, while Jane, who was ten, stood crying, frantically twisting her handkerchief.

  ‘The doctor thinks Mother had a stroke,’ Vera said. Bewildered, Izzie frowned at her sister. ‘A stroke?’ This didn’t make sense to her. Wasn’t stroking a perfectly safe thing to do, like patting a dog? What did Vera mean?

  ‘She – she’s —’ Vera couldn’t bring herself to finish. A terrible cry broke from her and she quickly jammed a handkerchief into her mouth.

  It was Betty who tried to explain. ‘Mother collapsed, Izzie. She was in the kitchen talking to Mrs Phipps about dinner and – and it just happened. Poor Mrs Phipps was in a terrible state. We phoned for the doctor, but it was too late.’

  ‘Too late for what?’ But even as Izzie asked this question, she realised that she could guess the awful answer.

  After the van had driven away, Izzie’s father went into the house and headed upstairs without speaking to any of them. His face was pale and his mouth a thin, tight, downward-curving line. He clutched the stair railing as he ascended, as if his legs weren’t strong enough to support him.

  Jem and the girls went into the sitting room and Vera asked Daisy, who was hovering in the doorway and looking quite sick, if she would make them a pot of tea. Jem drifted to the far window and stood, hands sunk deep in his trouser pockets, staring out. Vera slumped into an armchair and Jane and Betty flopped onto the sofa.

  Bewildered, Izzie stood in the middle of the room. None of the others spoke. No one cried. They just stared blankly into space.

  ‘Why won’t one of you tell me what happened?’ she demanded. ‘Mother’s dead, isn’t she?’

  It was Jem who answered her. ‘Yes, poppet.’ He turned from the window and he spoke gently. ‘I’m afraid she is.’

  ‘Did they put her in the van?’ Izzie asked, even though she was sure she knew the answer.

  ‘Yes.’ This time Jem and Vera spoke together.

  Izzie couldn’t bear it. Her mother had been on that stretcher, under the white sheet, and now she’d been taken away from them in a van. Izzie would never see her again.

  A vision of her life without their mother flashed before her. No one coming to kiss her good morning or to tuck her in to bed at night. An empty chair at the end of the dining table. No one to listen to her tales of woe or triumph when she came home from school bursting with news. No special cuddles.

  Her mouth twisted and trembled. ‘Oh, Jem,’ she wailed. ‘I did
n’t tell her. I didn’t tell her I was going to Newmarket with you. I didn’t say goodbye.’

  As Izzie made this terrible confession, an awful noise broke from her, a noise she didn’t realise she was making at first until her knees turned rubbery and she sank to the carpet sobbing. Pressing her face into the carpet that smelled faintly of dog, she sobbed so hard she was shaking.

  And now she couldn’t stop. She was aware of Jem and her sisters kneeling beside her, trying to calm her, to comfort her. At some point she knew that Daisy had come back into the room with the tea tray and that cups and saucers were being passed around. And she knew she was making too much noise, but she couldn’t help it. She was too filled with guilt and pain and the most awful, smothering loss.

  During the night, Izzie woke often and each time she remembered that her mother was dead – gone forever – and the tears came again, making her throat ache, soaking her pillow.

  At one point Betty came into her room with a mug of warm milk and honey, and she sat with Izzie after it was finished, until she drifted back to sleep. But when Izzie woke again it was still dark and the tears and misery returned as painfully and noisily as ever.

  Morning finally arrived. A grey, sunless morning, and Izzie stayed under the bedclothes in a miserable huddle until Vera came in, already dressed for the day, rather than remaining in her dressing gown as she usually did. Izzie remembered that her mother would never come through her bedroom doorway again, and she was on the brink of a fresh burst of sobbing when her sister held up her hand.

  ‘Don’t start crying again,’ Vera warned her gently, but quite firmly.

  ‘Why not?’ Izzie whimpered.

  ‘You’ll upset Daddy.’

  Daddy. Izzie’s mouth was open, ready to let out a wail that promised to be even louder and more tragic than any of her previous laments. But as Vera’s word sank in, she shut her mouth again.

  ‘We all need to be very brave,’ Vera said. ‘For Daddy’s sake.’