The Forgotten Village

by Lorna Cook

  Guy tipped the whisky straight into his mouth from the bottle, bypassing the cut-glass tumbler. He kicked off his shoes and put his feet up on the desk, leaning back and savouring the taste of the alcohol. Tomorrow was a new day.

  CHAPTER 27

  The knocking was getting louder. If it was in the depths of Melissa’s dream, then it needed to stay there, far out of reach of reality.

  Knock knock knock. It sounded again. Her eyes opened this time and she tried blinking sleep out of them. When that didn’t work, she rubbed her eyes and rolled onto her side, slowly acclimatising and blinking herself awake. She groped for her phone and pulled at it to check the time. It was still attached to its charger and it pinged back out of her grasp as if it was on a bungee cord and fell to the floor.

  The knocking sounded again and Melissa sat up as she realised someone was hammering at the door to her hotel room. She sprang out of bed and went to the door, yanking down the pyjama T-shirt she was wearing. She’d kicked her way out of her pyjama bottoms during the night, it had been so hot. But a thigh-skimming top and a pair of knickers was not suitable attire to wear to answer the door, so she decided it was best not to open it. ‘Yes?’ she called.

  ‘It’s me,’ Guy called back. ‘I’ve been knocking for ages. I thought you might have died in there.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she called back.

  ‘Are you going to open the door?’ He laughed.

  Melissa looked down at her thighs. No.

  ‘Sure, just give me a sec.’ She ran to the bathroom and grabbed the fluffy robe from the hook behind the door. She glanced in the mirror and tried to smooth her bed hair down. Covering up with the robe, she pulled the hotel door open. ‘Hi.’ She smiled.

  ‘Hi,’ he returned and leaned against the door frame. One hand was thrust casually in his pocket. ‘So,’ he started, ‘I called room service for some breakfast. They’re bringing it to my suite. I wondered if you wanted to join me?’

  Behind him came the clang of a room service trolley being rolled down the corridor.

  ‘Definitely,’ Melissa replied and gestured for the waiter to bring the trolley to her room; she didn’t fancy prowling the corridor in her dressing gown.

  ‘Thanks,’ Guy said to the waiter and handed him a tip as he left.

  Melissa looked at the trolley that was piled high with fruit, croissants, and Danish pastries, two toast racks with white and brown bread, pots of jams and preserves, and two silver domes covering hot plates. A pot of tea, a cafetière of coffee and one extra silver pot sat on the tray.

  ‘What’s that one?’ she asked as Guy pushed the trolley inside the room and closed the door behind him.

  ‘Hot chocolate.’ Guy grinned. ‘Just in case. I went ahead and ordered a little bit of everything off the menu. I wasn’t sure what you might fancy. I’ll eat whatever you don’t.’

  Melissa looked on hungrily. ‘That’s a lot of breakfast.’ She took a piece of toast and jam and paused briefly as she watched Guy tuck into an entire full English, followed by two slices of toast. For a toned man, he had a healthy appetite.

  ‘What do you want to do today?’ Guy said as he threw his napkin down onto his empty plate. ‘Does the hunt continue?’

  Melissa nodded, eyeing up the croissants.

  ‘I guess so. I want to know who the mysterious Freddie Standish is.’

  ‘Ah, he of the grainy, pixelated little picture. All right.’ Guy stood. ‘You finish breakfast, get dressed and I’ll meet you downstairs. We’ll search some local records as well as the online ones and see what we can find.’ He lifted a grape from the fruit bowl, threw it high in the air, positioned his head back and caught it deftly in his mouth.

  ‘Smooth,’ Melissa said as Guy headed towards the door.

  ‘Thanks. That could have gone horribly wrong. There’s nothing like a grape to the eye to really impress a girl.’

  Melissa laughed.

  ‘Melissa?’

  Her head shot back up to see that Guy’s face was serious.

  ‘I’m really glad you stayed,’ he finished.

  She smiled. ‘Me too.’

  Melissa walked downstairs in cut-off shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops. Guy was nowhere to be seen and the receptionist eyed her critically while she waited for him. Melissa smiled, but the woman behind the front desk ignored her.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen—?’ Melissa asked.

  ‘He’s in the garden,’ the icy receptionist cut in.

  ‘Thanks. Have a good day.’ Melissa rolled her eyes.

  Guy was pacing up and down, speaking into his phone with a concerned look on his face. Melissa sat in the sun a little distance away from him to give him privacy and waited for him to finish. A few minutes later, he stabbed at his phone to end his call. He ran his hand through his hair and frowned.

  ‘You okay?’ Melissa enquired.

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘That was my mum. I need to go to the hospital. Gran’s not doing so well.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Overnight she seems to have taken a turn for the worse. The nurses weren’t happy and the doctor was just doing his rounds when my mum called. Can we postpone our research?’

  Melissa felt so guilty that their quest had taken him away from Anna. She was poorly and he should be with her. What were they doing? There were other things in this life more important than tracking down a frightened-looking wartime wife.

  ‘Yes, definitely. Your gran’s health beats that hands down. You go.’

  Guy ran his hand through his hair again. ‘Okay, thanks. I’ll see you later.’

  Melissa nodded. Guy bent down, kissing her. It felt electric, exciting. He lingered, his eyes closed, and then he grinned as he stood back up.

  ‘Bye.’ He waved as he turned.

  Melissa smiled at his kiss as he walked away. She exhaled deeply, attempting to get her breath back. While her track record with men had, so far, not been great, no man had ever made her stomach flip the way Guy did.

  She felt bad for him. She had no grandparents now and could well remember her nanny’s sad demise all those years ago. She’d been at university and had missed the very last days of her nan’s life. There were so many things she wished she’d asked her about. Hindsight was a wonderful thing. Melissa was glad Guy was spending these days seeing his family.

  She glanced at her watch. Time was knocking on. She needed to be proactive now. Just because Guy was an expert historian didn’t mean she couldn’t do some research herself. She’d rinsed the internet for all it was worth when it came to Veronica and Albert, but maybe the mysterious Freddie Standish might lead somewhere.

  Melissa fetched her laptop from her room and sat in the sunshine on the terrace. Connecting to the hotel’s hazy Wi-Fi service, she opened up a genealogy website and reluctantly put her credit card details in to pay for access. As the different options opened up in front of her, Melissa’s eyes glazed over. First and last names were a breeze. Melissa input Freddie Standish into the relevant fields. Location, dates, categories, and subcategories started to flex her brain. She typed in 1943 and Dorset and clicked go. Nothing. Nothing of any use anyway.

  Tapping her foot, she hunched over the screen and tried again but unticked the box for ‘name variation’. She only wanted Freddie Standish. Not Stanton or Stanbridge or anything else. Birth records, death records, and census records all drew a blank. There was nothing that matched a Freddie Standish. She sat and stared out across the hotel’s garden wondering what to search for next.

  She moved the mouse to kick-start the screen and then, on a hunch, replaced Freddie with Frederick in the search field, typing as fast as she could. She hit enter.

  CHAPTER 28

  As the page loaded, it displayed zero relevant results. Melissa could have screamed. They made this all look so easy on Who Do You Think You Are? How were there no results? What was she doing wrong? Maybe it was a typo in the book after all. Maybe Freddie Standish wasn’t a real person
.

  Melissa slammed the laptop lid down just as a waitress approached her. She glanced at her watch. ‘Bloody Mary, please,’ Melissa said without hesitation. Dead-end research was thirsty work. It was a wonder Guy wasn’t an alcoholic.

  She sat for a moment and wondered what other route was available to her. Would there be anything in a library that wasn’t online? Maybe other local history books might show something interesting about Veronica and Albert.

  She made a snap decision. ‘Actually, sorry, can I cancel that drink?’ Melissa asked.

  She looked up the nearest library on her laptop and then gathered her belongings and strode purposefully towards her car.

  It took about half an hour of winding through lanes to reach the library. Melissa wondered the last time she’d been inside one. Probably at university? That was shameful.

  The single-level Victorian red-brick building had once been a school and the words carved into the stone above the front door showed it had been the Girls’ Entrance. The laminated sign Blu-tacked on the inside of the door explained that it was now a community library – run by volunteers just three days a week.

  Melissa nodded hello to the lady who was single-handedly running the premises and then perused the shelves. The local history books were plentiful, but Melissa wasn’t really sure what she was looking for. A book about Tyneham would be excellent – especially if it wasn’t one of the three that she had already bought. But there was nothing.

  Melissa sighed; it sounded as loud as a scream in the close confines of the quiet library.

  ‘Can I help you, dearie?’ the female volunteer asked kindly. She was middle-aged with bobbed hair and glasses.

  ‘I’m not really sure actually,’ Melissa replied. She was despondent and she knew she sounded it. ‘I’m looking for …’ What was she looking for? I’m looking for a woman in a photograph from the war that was in an unhappy marriage. Her husband found out she was having an affair and then she disappeared without trace a month later. No. That wouldn’t sound particularly normal. Start small. Then work up to it. She thought of the pixelated Freddie Standish.

  ‘I wonder if you have any books about local sport. Cricket in particular.’

  The volunteer looked up as she thought. ‘I don’t think so. We have a few almanacs, but they’re quite old. Pre-war, I think. Only little home-made pamphlets by enthusiasts of the time. Mementos really. They rarely get a look-in, but I’m sure they are here somewhere. What is it you are looking for?’

  Melissa tried not to get too excited at the thought of pre-war local cricket books, which would have ordinarily bored her to tears. ‘A name. Someone called Freddie Standish.’

  ‘Is he a famous batsman? I’m sure I’ve heard that surname before.’

  ‘No, he’s not famous. He was a resident of Tyneham before the requisition. He played for the local cricket team in the thirties, but I can only find one reference to him, so I just wanted to check that he was real. That the name wasn’t a typo,’ Melissa clarified.

  ‘We learned about Tyneham in school,’ the volunteer said. ‘I remember the big house was taken as well as the village. They reopened it last weekend – the village, I mean. Don’t think they’ve opened the house yet though. Have you been to have a look? I’m going next week. You might find something interesting about him there.’

  Melissa grimaced. ‘It was visiting Tyneham that got me into all this mess in the first place.’

  The lady looked strangely at Melissa as they walked round to an archive shelf. The volunteer pulled a box of pamphlets out of a small Perspex storage box. ‘These aren’t official library property. My granddad was a local cricketer and used to keep the odd bit of local sporting memorabilia and a few of these crept into the library when he died. I can’t remember the last time we looked at these. But let’s see.’ The little yellowing leaflets were made of thick paper but were crumbling at the edges. They were basic in their presentation and the librarian hadn’t been lying when she’d said they were a home-made job. Melissa’s hopes of them proving useful died.

  ‘What are these exactly?’

  ‘Some are almanacs of the big cricket teams in Dorset and there’s references to a few matches for each of the seasons – players and the like.’ The telephone rang in the office and the librarian gave the box to Melissa. ‘I hope it proves useful,’ she said as she went to grab the phone.

  Melissa shunned the desk. It was too small for her needs. She sat on the scratchy carpeted floor tiles and leafed through the contents of the box, laying each pamphlet out methodically in chronological order. She ran her finger over the old typewriter ink and then started reading. The big county cricket match sheets were a dead end; Freddie’s name wasn’t listed in any of them. But after a few minutes flicking open the smaller pamphlets, she found a list of team members for various local cricket teams. Tyneham was listed through the 1920s and 30s with the players’ names, positions and ages. Melissa was disappointed to see that a few years were missing. The pamphlets showed the various teams Tyneham had played against along with the final scores throughout the seasons. There was nothing relating to Freddie in the nineteen twenties, but then as Melissa started on the nineteen thirties lists, there he was. Her eyes almost popped out of her head. Freddie Standish was on the Tyneham cricket team from 1932 to 1937. Like the other players, his age was displayed. In 1937, Freddie Standish had been twenty-six. He wasn’t a typo. He was real. Melissa made a whoop of joy.

  She pulled out her mobile phone. Her first thought was to message Guy. Whoever this Freddie Standish was, he was young. Given there was nothing else to go on at the moment, a lead was a lead, however apparently useless it looked. Her phone had been on silent all day and as Melissa looked at it there was already a message from Guy.

  I’m going to stay at the hospital for the rest of the day. Gran’s stable but sleeping a lot. I’d appreciate the company if you’re bored, but if not, no problem. Guy xx

  Melissa read it twice and her heart went out to him.

  The volunteer approached Melissa. ‘Anything I can help you with?’

  Melissa started placing the pamphlets and faded sheets back in the box.

  ‘Thanks, I found what I was looking for. He’s listed. Aged twenty-six in 1937, so it says.’ Melissa felt proud of her find.

  ‘Not long before the war,’ the librarian mused. ‘He’d have been twenty-eight when he went to war, if he went in 1939. That’s a good age. But not one to say a life had been fully lived.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ Melissa looked down at the floor.

  ‘So, who was he then?’

  ‘Something to do with the family that owned Tyneham House. He just intrigued me. He cropped up when I was … looking for something else. I think he may have been a brother or a cousin. But he’s a regular on the cricket team so I’m not all that sure he would be a visiting cousin now.’ Melissa didn’t want to tell this woman that she was on the hunt for Lady Veronica Standish. The idea of Veronica having had an affair with a man who two of the village boys swore was her husband seemed like gossiping about a friend. Talking about Veronica like that to this stranger made Melissa feel disloyal.

  Melissa took a picture of her find on her phone, thanked the librarian, popped a five-pound note in the collection tin that went towards repairs and funds and said goodbye.

  She had found Freddie but now she had no idea what she was looking for next. As she walked back to her car she realised this was all just a massive distraction from real life. The prospect of looking for a job and having to return to her crappy little flat did not fill Melissa with joy. Standing in the sunshine in the library car park, she thought about this holiday that had turned into an adventure. Was it only an adventure because she was forcing it to be? She’d hit a dead end, surely? Was finding Freddie Standish getting her closer to discovering what had happened to Veronica? Maybe nothing had happened to Veronica. Maybe nothing had happened to any of them. Melissa was annoyed she wasn’t getting anywhere.

 
She would go and see Guy and keep him company.

  En route to the hospital, Melissa wondered if it was time to make a decision. If she couldn’t get any further finding out what happened to Veronica, she would have to stop obsessing about it and start thinking about her own life. She’d been putting off serious job-hunting for long enough. Her heart just hadn’t been in it. But Guy had made the last few days fun, exciting, and enjoyable, and she loved being with him. If this was going to go somewhere, then wasn’t it best that it started in the realms of reality? Her real life had beckoned her a few days before and she’d ignored it. Perhaps if Guy didn’t have any other immediate ideas about what they should look for next, it was time to go home?

  CHAPTER 29

  ‘Hi,’ Melissa whispered to Guy as she approached Anna’s bedside.

  He rose and took her hand. Melissa looked down and was concerned to see that Anna looked paler and thinner around the face than she had before.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Melissa asked. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Fine, I think. Tired though. You came.’ He smiled. ‘I didn’t expect you to. But I’m really glad you did. Thank you.’

  ‘No problem. I wanted to talk to you. Guy, I think I should …’ She was about to tell him she thought it was time for her to go back to London, but Anna stirred.

  Guy moved away from Melissa and stood over his gran, watching her with a concerned expression on his face. When Anna settled, he turned his attention back to Melissa but the worried look prevailed. ‘Sorry, you were saying?’

  Melissa shook her head. ‘Nothing.’ She squeezed his arm gently. ‘It’ll keep.’

  After a while, Guy whispered, ‘I’ve been thinking. I wonder if we should look Freddie Standish up.’

  Melissa gave him a knowing look as she sat down. ‘I had a go today actually. Online I couldn’t find anything. I have a new-found respect for your job. Even when information is listed as being available on those websites, it’s not simple to work out what you’re supposed to be doing.’