The Last Letter from Juliet

by Melanie Hudson

  ‘But, Tinder? Are you sure, because Classic FM have a dating site that’s, well, perhaps more suited …’

  He cut me short.

  ‘I’m younger than I look …’

  I doubted it.

  ‘Ok, well …’ I grabbed my phone. He combed his beard and draped himself across the sofa. ‘Say cheese!’

  Noel and I had a lovely couple of hours drinking gin while completing his online dating profile. When I asked what his accepted age bracket for his prospective partner was, he said, ‘Eighteen to forty-five’ which I thought a little wide, and perhaps optimistic for a seventy-eight-year old man, even if he did have elves and a red nosed reindeer. After a little polite persuasion, he eventually agreed to upping the age limit to fifty-eight – ‘but no higher!’ he said. ‘Women go downhill rapidly after that. And I need someone young enough to keep up!’

  And so, with a smile on my face and a gin-infused spring in my step, I clicked Noel’s door behind me and carried on down the hill, only to be quickly seized upon by Percy, (who, if Noel was my scarecrow, must, therefore, be my tin man) who leapt out of his front garden gate as I passed by and invited me into his cottage for a festive glass of sherry and to meet his wife, Cherie.

  A batch of tasty canapés had, quite coincidentally, just come out of the oven, he said. Seeing this as a perfect example of seizing on an unexpected opportunity and making the most of it (aka coddiwompling), I allowed him to guide me in.

  Drinking sherry with Cherie was surprisingly enjoyable, but the arrival of a couple of apostrophe vigilante neighbours soon marred the experience. The conversation turned to the positioning of the ‘s’ and I realised that my company had been sought for unscrupulous means. I was just about to pop my second prawn vol-au-vent into my mouth when, realising I was impervious to bribery (and possibly edging towards a conclusion that the apostrophe should go before the s), Percy saw that he was getting nowhere, took my glass from my hand and announced that I must be wanting to be on my way and I was man-handled out of the door moments later without much more than a bye or leave.

  I never did warm to the tin man as much as the scarecrow.

  I carried on down the hill, warmed a little by the gin and sherry and stopped by the harbour wall to assess the state of the swell. As Fenella predicted, it seemed the sea was now sleeping off the mother of all hangovers and had adopted a flat, calm, comatose, couldn’t be arsed, state.

  I really shouldn’t have had that drink.

  But I wasn’t needed at Fenella’s until seven, which meant I had plenty of time to sober up before foraging for seaweed. I settled myself at the kitchen table, flashed up the computer and was just about to email to Sam Lanyon when my phone pinged.

  Uncle Gerald.

  George stable. I’ve told him a thousand times to cut back on the port and cigars, not to mention the truffles he ships in from Harrods. Hope you’re having a good time. Feel terrible to have left you on your own. I’ll make it up to you. Any joy with the apostrophe? Did Fenella mention the seaweed? X

  Blooming seaweed.

  I opened my email and selected ‘compose’. It was a fairly easy letter to write:

  Dear Mr Lanyon

  My name is Katherine Henderson and I’m the lady who is staying at Angel View this Christmas. Thank you so much for allowing me to stay in your beautiful cottage (I love it!), but I’m afraid I have a confession to make (and I may as well tell you before the elf grasses me up).

  There was a shocking storm last night and to calm my nerves Uncle Gerald pointed me in the direction of whiskey in the sideboard and said that I was to help myself. The thing is, I stumbled across your grandmother’s memoirs while taking out the whiskey and I’m so sorry but I’m afraid I started to read them, and now that I’ve started, I’m afraid I don’t want to stop. I think I’ve fallen a little bit in love with Juliet, and was wondering if you would be kind enough to allow me to carry on reading her story. I know it sounds odd, but feel as though she is very much still alive within the cottage – like she could walk back in at any moment – which I know makes no sense at all now that she’s gone.

  I know you must be very busy, what with being at sea and everything, but it would be wonderful if you found the time to email back giving the green light for me to delve into your grandmother’s fascinating life.

  With very best wishes,

  Katherine

  P.S. Are you the same Sam Lanyon who writes the travel blog? I’ve been reading it.

  P.P.S. I’m not a mad stalker, honest.

  Sam’s Christmas card was sitting on the table, resting against the vase. I opened it to find his email address – sam.lanyon459@mod.uk.gov

  I pressed Send on the email and a grain of sand caught my toe.

  My shoulders dropped about two inches and my poor damaged heart, held together with not much more than a bit of frayed garden twine, broke into yet more fragmented pieces. My longing for James, as ever, was triggered by the most obscure of things … a photo, a song, a place or, in this case, a number – number 459.

  James always left the house before me in the morning. He would often leave a post-it note stuck to the kitchen table with a random message written across it using text speak, which he knew I despised. On the morning he died, a bright pink note was stuck to the table with the numbers ‘459’ written across it – no words just, numbers. Utterly confused and smiling to myself, I sent him a text:

  459?

  An hour later, he replied:

  It means, ‘I love you’ x

  On the day of the funeral, I still had no idea why 459 meant ‘I Love You’, but learned later from a student that 459 transposes to the letters ‘ILY’ on a telephone keypad. I loved it.

  I grabbed my phone, meandered through to the lounge and did something I’d done at least once a day since James died – I scrolled down the messages list until I found James’ name and opened up a long line of his old messages – his loving one-liners sent every single day. They were all committed to memory by now, and yet I still scrolled through them, smiling, aching, remembering. I sat in the lounge, warming my hands on the electric radiator by the window and glanced through the messages while looking up now and again to watch the sunset over the islands. My thoughts wandered from James to Juliet. This was the very window she looked out on that last day with Edward … the same window, the same view, the same sun. I thought of the letter she had sent to herself, the letter on the fridge – a reminder to never forget him – and I knew exactly what she meant. But perhaps, living this way, with one foot in the past, was not quite healthy, not anymore. It was one thing to remember, and to remember with happiness, but another entirely to stick a pin in the world and stop it. Had Juliet sat at this window, whiling her life away remembering, scrolling through old letters, or had she gone out and grabbed life and left her time for remembering to the later years?

  Desperate to read on and discover how – if – their relationship had developed, and half-hoping to find the permission to grab my life back again from within the pages of Juliet’s story, I glanced at my watch and decided that one more excerpt from Juliet’s story without permission from Sam wouldn’t hurt, surely? After all, the elf was stuck in the kitchen and he would never need to know …

  Chapter 14

  Juliet

  Along came 1940

  Mabel Juliet Lanyon was born three months before the start of the war. I was in Yorkshire at Lottie’s side during the birth and knew from the moment Lottie held Mabel in her arms that she would never let her go, which was, for me, an absolute and blessed relief. Lottie argued (rather macabrely) that with the war with Germany practically unavoidable now, even if it lasted just a few months, by the end of it, lots of young women would find themselves widowed with fatherless children, and Lottie could easily be just another one of them. Her calculated approach confounded her mother, who had survived the accident and was convalescing at Lanyon, but was far too weak to argue.

  It was decided that Lottie and Mabel would
continue to lie low with the maiden aunt for a couple of years, and eventually the story would be passed around that Lottie had married in Harrogate after a whirlwind romance with an Army officer who had died in the war, and she would eventually return to Lanyon, legitimately – if fictionally – widowed.

  After Charles and I wed, a significant part of my inheritance was handed to Pa Lanyon, which left Charles free to follow his own dream – to join the Royal Navy as a warfare officer. In September 1939, at the very beginning of a war no one could guess would be even longer than the last, I drove Charles to the British Royal Naval College Dartmouth and waved him off at the start of, what Charles and Pa Lanyon believed, would be a sparkling military career. I did not for one second find difficulty saying goodbye. Despite trying to force the memory of Edward out of my mind, he lingered on – in replayed conversations, in a remembered smile, a walk or a song.

  But with Charles gone, I had no intention of returning to live at Lanyon, as was expected, because I did not want to risk seeing Edward in the village – so desperate, in fact, that immediately after the wedding I had insisted we begin our married life in a rented house near my old family home in Oxfordshire.

  By the Autumn of 1940 I was living alone at an absolute loss as to what to do to pass the time. Helping the war effort was paramount in my thoughts, but in what capacity? I was qualified to do one thing – fly. But the War Office remained insistent that women would not be allowed to fly in combat, or in any capacity within the RAF or the Fleet Air Arm. I could join the WAAFs in a non-flying capacity, but to sit at an air station and watch all the men fly while I polished their shoes? Never!

  I had lunch in Southampton with an old friend from the flying club my father patronised. I chomped my gums throughout the meal, moaning with venom about my utter frustration at not being allowed to fly in the RAF, despite being more qualified and a better pilot than most of the men. Janie, whose father was in the War Office and was well up on opportunities for women, offered solutions, and they didn’t include polishing shoes.

  There were many opportunities open to women, she explained, but if I was determined to fly, then the options were limited – limited, but not none existent. For a start, I could volunteer to fly a target-towing aircraft over the Solent.

  ‘It can be a bit hairy,’ Janie said, ‘what with the aim of the trainee gunners being a bit off-centre to start with, and you’d need to fly your own aircraft, but the pay’s jolly good and at least you get to fly. Have you still got that darling yellow Tiger Moth?’

  I did. It was in the barn at Lanyon.

  ‘Next?’

  Janie scratched her chin.

  ‘Well, you could always join the Free French. The French are more like the Poles and the Russians – you know, not sniffy about women pilots – but it’s a bit radical, Juliet. Better off as a target tower if you ask me. But the absolute best thing you could do …’ Janie paused to scrape the frothy milk out of the bottom of her coffee cup, ‘is what I’m thinking of doing …’ Janie paused again to add just the right amount of dramatic effect.

  ‘Go on …’

  ‘Join the ATA,’

  ‘The ATA?’

  ‘Air Transport Auxiliary. They deliver aircraft from the factories to all the air bases – move aircraft around the country for maintenance, that kind of thing. They’re letting a few women in as pilots now – I suppose they’ve got to, there simply aren’t enough chaps around to meet demand, these days.’

  Janie grabbed her clutch bag, snapped open the fasteners, took out a newspaper clipping and rested it on the table in front of me.

  ‘There you go.’

  Wanted

  Women pilots to fly for Air Transport Auxiliary

  Salary £400 per year

  Further details write to: PO Box 410

  I sat up straight.

  ‘But … this is incredible, Janie! Where are they based? When do you think I can start? Oh, Janie.’

  ‘Steady on, old girl. They haven’t let you in yet.’

  I thought of something – the excitement of which I could barely contain. ‘Oh, my God! Are we going to be allowed to fly the Spitfire? Because honestly, Janie. I would do anything – anything – to fly one of those.’

  ‘I’m not sure, maybe,’ Janie answered, pouring the last of the coffee. ‘The first tranche of women have only just joined – they’re at Hatfield. There’s around, oh, I don’t know, a thousand or so men dotted about the different delivery pools – they’re all the chaps who are either too crock or too old to join the RAF. I’ll bet the women get stuck delivering the old Tiger Moths – the RAF use it as their training aircraft. I know yours is a little beauty, but in the winter, they really are cold, breezy old things.’

  ‘Moths? But I wouldn’t mind that in the least! And at least we’d be flying again, Janie. That’s all that matters, surely?’ I ran a finger over the advertisement. ‘Being grounded is damn well killing me!’

  Janie tipped her head sideways.

  ‘What will Charles make of it, do you think?’

  I shrugged. Charles wouldn’t give too figs.

  ‘He’ll be fine about it. Definitely. He’s quite a modern man, you know.’

  ‘But what about his family? Didn’t you say they’re a bit straight-laced. They might not be impressed. You’re a married woman now – lady of the manner and all that. It was one thing to fly under the banner of your dear old Pa, but they might not like this, Juliet …’ Janie took the advertisement out of my hand and looked at it. ‘It’s all so very …’

  ‘So very, what?’

  ‘Well, it’s very … I don’t know, masculine, I suppose.’

  I laughed.

  ‘Oh, Janie. There’s a war on. Absolutely everything women do these days is masculine. It’s the only upside of having this damn war in the first place!’ I took the advertisement back.

  ‘Can I have this?’

  She shrugged. I took it as a yes and tucked the scrap of paper safely into my handbag.

  ‘Mark my words,’ I said. ‘Pretty soon, they’ll realise just how much they need us.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Women! Janie. Women! WAAF, Land Army, factories … you name it, women are doing it all nowadays, and doing it well, too.’ I leant in and whispered. ‘And I for one fully intended to make the most of it!’

  Chapter 15

  Juliet

  Attagirls!

  Some days come along in life that are so significant they stay with you for eternity. Such days remain as bright and clear in my mind’s eye now as on the day itself and usually fall into two categories – days so terrible I would rather forget them, or days so wonderful I want to remember them forever. The day I flew a Spitfire for the first time fell into the latter category. It was the day I fell in love all over again and it was made all the better for sharing the experience with my wonderful new ATA friends, the ultimate Attagirls, Anna and Marie.

  ‘I don’t think I can do it,’ Anna said, her right hand to her forehead, shading the sun. We watched Marie as she completed her first circuit of the airfield. Anna’s left hand still in mine. I squeezed her hand gently.

  ‘Yes, you can. I know you can. You’re every bit the pilot I am.’

  She looked at me. Her face puce.

  ‘All right,’ I admitted, ‘perhaps you’re not quite as confident as me, but you haven’t had the same amount of experience in the seat, that’s all.’

  We’d met several months before, Anna, Marie and I, in London at Austin Reeds Taylors. We were being kitted out for our ATA uniforms – navy worsted suits and forage caps. Anna and I were to be based at the all-women ferry pool at Hamble, but Marie was set for White Waltham, which had male pilots too, much to Marie’s delight. We cut quite a dash in our gold-trimmed uniforms, a uniform guaranteed to provide limitless male attention and a seat at the best tables in town.

  Anna was Canadian. A more practical, kind, straight-talking woman you would never meet. We had a great deal in common, Anna and I. H
er father had taught her how to fly on the family farm and had also died suddenly just a few years before. Marie was American. When we asked her where she was from, she simply answered, ‘Money’. She placed everyone she met into one of three categories – a Honey, a Hottie, or a Sonofabitch. Her family originated in Texas, where she learned to fly, but she had spent a great deal of time in Manhattan and socialised with the kind of people a woman of her wealth and status was attracted to. Bored to death with her life as a socialite and desperate to do her bit in Europe, from across the Atlantic she had heard the cry for ATA pilots and, sensing the adventure of a lifetime was just an ocean away, had jumped aboard The Beaver bound for Liverpool and risked a perilous journey across the Atlantic, dodging German U-boats, in order to join the cause.

  Marie was something of a celebrity in certain flying circles (mainly due to an episode crash landing her Gypsy Moth in the African bush and spending a night with a Masai herdsman) which was an image that did not quite ring true with her perfect coiffure and manicured nails – always painted pillar-box red (‘because you never know when the next hot guy might happen along’). Anna and I were both a little in awe of her when we bumped into her that day at Austin Reeds, but we soon found ourselves scooped up under her protective wing, heading, right there and then, in fact, to her flat in Chelsea for cocktails before venturing out into the blacked-out London night dressed in our new uniforms.

  And now, here we all were, together again at the Central Flying Training School, RAF Upavon. The three of us having been selected for a flying conversion course to learn to fly the most iconic and beautiful flying machine ever created – the Supermarine Spitfire. Edward was right, if you dreamed hard enough, the very best things really could happen.

  For the first few days our feet were kept firmly on the ground, spending time in a classroom or in a hangar listening to our RAF instructor, learning the basics. But there was no substitute for the real thing and today – 21 March 1941 – was one of the best and most important days of my life, because today was the day I would fly the Supermarine Spitfire for the first time. I could not wait to jump into that wonderful little cockpit, start her up and hear the sound of the Merlin engine purring through my soul. But Anna’s nervousness was not without merit. The first flight was to be a solo flight because all the aircraft at Upavon were single seat, which meant that there was no room for an instructor in the back, which meant there was no room for error, either. Going solo would require a strong nerve and absolute confidence.