by Julia Kelly
Her thoughts immediately flashed to Paul. If he died, she might not know until weeks later. She wasn’t a wife. She wasn’t family. As a sweetheart, she had no official claim on him. His mother would be the one to open that telegram. Louise would have to rely on the thoughtfulness of the other men in his unit who’d heard about her. One of them would have to fish out a letter from Paul’s effects to find her service number.
Her stomach twisted at the thought. She could only pray that Paul would be kept safe.
Two RAF sergeants appeared next to the grieving woman, helping her friends lift her up and half carry her out of the NAAFI. Everyone watched the door shut behind them, plunging the place into an uncomfortable silence.
After a few moments, people began to shift about, but the man who’d been playing the piano closed the keyboard cover and slipped off the bench.
Louise watched Cartruse come to their table, his face even more solemn than usual. He dropped into the chair next to her and scrubbed a hand across his jaw.
“It was her husband,” he said after a moment. “They were married in January before he shipped out.” They all murmured in sympathy, but he went on. “Her parents were killed in the Blitz so she joined up. Said she doesn’t have anyone left.”
“It was good of you to comfort her,” Louise said.
“What comfort can you offer a woman going through something like that? What do you say?” he asked.
Louise laid a hand on his arm, and he looked up at her. His eyes were so tired.
“You say whatever you can,” she said.
His mouth twisted, but after a moment he patted her hand.
That night, Louise wrote to Paul fifteen words.
I love you. Tell me you love me too. Tonight I need to hear it.
15
CARA
They were twenty minutes out from Widcote Manor when Liam ended the silence that had hung about the car since London.
“Will you tell me what happened?” he asked.
He didn’t need to elaborate. She knew what he wanted to hear, and for the first time in a long time she felt like she could start to tell the story to someone who hadn’t seen the ugliness unfold.
“My ex wasn’t the person I thought he was, or maybe he was and I just couldn’t see it in the beginning. It started when Simon was made redundant in 2015, and all of his promises to find a new job never panned out.”
“It’s a tough market,” said Liam.
“You’re being much, much too kind. When it first happened, he seemed determined to get another job. A better one. But after a couple months of hunting he sort of gave up.
“At uni, he’d cultivated a group of friends who were all members of private clubs who would go to hunt balls at the weekends and play polo in the summer. We were comfortable with both of our salaries, but we couldn’t keep up with them, though Simon tried.
“After he lost his job, it became worse. We’d bought the house and we were relying on my income to pay the mortgage and everything else. Yes, it was a tough market, but after a while I realized he wasn’t looking for a job. I got suspicious that he always seemed to be meeting some uni friend or another and I’d cross-check our credit card bills. Turns out that when I was at work, he was eating at expensive restaurants or going to his club. Tennis matches, rounds of golf, days at Lord’s, poker tournaments. He spent one afternoon racing vintage Morgans in the Malvern Hills. That set us back a couple thousand pounds, plus another thousand for bets he lost.”
Liam winced. “Did you know?”
Cara sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I knew about some of it, but not as much as I should’ve. I was working more than I’ve ever worked in my life to bill as many hours as possible because I told myself that was the only way we’d stay solvent. The truth is, I wanted to work. I knew we were drifting apart, and it was easier to stay away than to deal with that.”
She crossed her arms over her stomach. Thinking about the whole mess never failed to make her feel like a fool. She’d known that Simon liked to keep up appearances, but she’d thought it was simple male competitiveness, never once believing he was capable of putting them on the path to a level of debt that would’ve meant bankruptcy if she hadn’t stopped it. She’d been played, but she’d had all the evidence in front of her. She’d let it happen.
“One afternoon, I couldn’t ignore it anymore,” she said. “I’d come home from work early with a migraine. Simon was passed out on the sofa, a bottle of gin next to him, and his phone was dinging with messages from friends wondering where he was. He’d promised to show for a high-stakes poker game but had gotten too drunk.
“I don’t know why that was what made me snap, but I went straight up to his office and began going through his records. I found seven credit cards in both of our names that I’d never seen before, all of them at or near their limit. Overdraft notices. Casino receipts and IOUs for private gambling debts. There were unpaid bills for the utilities and the mortgage. I opened up our joint account and realized that he’d been pulling money out in increasingly large increments every week. I hadn’t noticed before, because he’d taken over paying the bills, since he wasn’t working and had more time.
“When he was sober enough to talk later that evening, I told him I knew everything and wanted an explanation. He became defensive, and when I asked him if he had a problem with gambling and drinking, he denied it.” She snuck a glance at Liam, who looked straight ahead, his hands tight on the wheel. “That night he snuck out of the house. When I woke up that morning, he still hadn’t come back. I went into his email and found the receipt for a car-hire app. He’d gone to the Park Tower Casino in Knightsbridge.”
“Was that what did it?” Liam asked.
She laughed. “No, of course not. There were four more months of fighting and crying and him promising to get help, but I would come home and find him drunk and passed out. Then a drunk driver hit my parents. I got the call from the hospital that they were in critical condition. They died before I could get there.
“The day after the funeral, I went to my solicitor’s office and filed for divorce.” It wasn’t the entire story, but it was as much as she was willing to tell him right now. Even this had wrung her out.
“As a condition of the divorce, I paid off Simon’s debts and he walked away from everything else. The house, the cars, the furniture.”
“The things we just saw in storage,” Liam guessed.
“Yes. I just wanted to close the door on it all.”
“I can understand that,” he said.
“Is that what you did when you found out about Vivian and your best friend?” she asked softly.
It was his turn to laugh. “I didn’t just walk away, remember? I moved my whole life out of the country. I arrived in Oregon in the early summer and locked myself in my office and in the archives, researching an article for an academic journal I’d been invited to submit to. I spent most of that time in a fog.”
She nodded, the feeling so familiar. “I think I spent the six months after my parents died in a fugue state. There are so many things I can’t remember doing, even though they’re on my calendar.”
“And you do everything you can to convince yourself that it’s normal, you’re normal, until one day you sort of crack. It was four months after I moved when I came home and found a package on my front doorstep. It was a bread machine from an old friend from uni and his wife that was meant as a wedding gift. Apparently Vivian had missed them when she was calling around to tell people the wedding was off, and they’d tracked me down in Reed thinking that we’d love the surprise. I opened it and the next thing I knew I was ugly-crying on the laminate floor of my rental kitchen.”
“That’s terrible,” she said.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. They were so mortified when they found out that they refused to let me return the bread machine. I had fresh bread whenever I wanted for two years until I moved back to Barlow and had to leave it behind.”
She co
cked her head to the side. “The wrong kind of plug?”
“Exactly,” he said.
“That moment happened to me in a Waitrose. I picked up a bag of granola because I knew we were running low in the pantry, and I realized there was no more ‘we’ and that I hate granola and that I never had to buy it again.”
“At least it happened in a posh grocery store,” he said after a moment. “Did you ugly-cry?”
She laughed, her tension uncoiling a little bit more. “I was wearing mascara. I promise you that my ugly cry was uglier than yours.”
“Do you know the one thing I’ve found that helps? Talking about it. I know it’s cliché, but after the bread machine, I made myself start talking to my sister and my mother.” He glanced over at her as the sign for Widcote Manor’s off-ramp came into view. “And now I’m talking to you.”
As the car glided onto the winding service road overrun with late-blooming buddleia, she realized he was right. She had talked to him and she did feel better—as though a weight that had been pressing down on her chest for so long had suddenly lifted. They hardly knew each other and it didn’t make sense, but Liam somehow made her feel lighter, easier, more like herself. Just his company was beckoning her back into the world again.
“Thank you, Liam,” she said as they parked outside of Gran’s.
“For what?” he asked, turning his body fully to her for the first time since they’d left London.
She shook her head. “For agreeing to come with your divorced neighbor to her storage locker. For driving. For helping with the diary. For liking Gran.”
“I want you to know that I’d like Iris whether she was your gran or not.”
“Even when she’s flirting with you?” she asked.
“Especially then.”
She jerked her head toward the back seat. “Then I suppose we should go bring her this box.”
“And hopefully you’ll have the answer to another mystery by the end of the day.”
Liam was out of the car and around to her side before she’d pulled her purse from the back seat. He held open the door for her, and it almost felt as though this was the beginning of something.
In the lift, Cara clutched the box, staring as the numbers ticked up one, two, three.
“Are you nervous?” Liam asked, as the doors slid open on Gran’s floor.
The muscles of her jaw worked as she tried to articulate what she was feeling. “I don’t know. Gran’s held this part of her life back from me for so long. At first I didn’t think too much about it but now . . .”
“You’re wondering why,” he finished for her. “I think it’s time you asked her again.”
She knocked, and almost immediately the door swung open, as though Gran had been waiting for her.
“Cara, you’ve brought your handsome professor back.”
“Hello, Iris,” said Liam, kissing Gran on the cheek.
Rather than flirt with him further, Gran’s watercolor-blue eyes fell to the battered wooden box. “You found it.”
Cara nodded.
“Tea first.” Gran glanced down at her watch. “Or a drink. It’s nearly five o’clock.”
Anticipation shimmered in the room even as they made small talk about the drive to and from London, the state of the storage container, and the strength of Gran’s drinks. Finally, when everyone was settled with a gin and tonic, Cara gestured to the box.
“It was in the safe, just as you said. I can’t believe I didn’t remember it when I was looking for Mum and Dad’s will.”
Gran smoothed a hand over the unfinished grain. “I’ve often wondered if I was right to keep it.”
Cara held her breath as Gran lifted the lid and smiled the sad little smile of a woman being forced to remember things she’d rather forget.
“Where do you want me to start?” Gran asked, peering down at the things in the box.
“At the beginning,” Cara said.
“I joined up as soon as I turned eighteen,” said Gran. “Conscription for young, unmarried women was in place then, but I would’ve gone no matter what. Barlow didn’t see the kind of bombing the ports and industrial cities suffered, but the war was everywhere—in the films we watched, the newspapers we read, the radio programs we listened to. Everyone knew a boy who was fighting and a girl who was working in service as a medic or a driver or a clerk.
“But the war wasn’t just dreary tragedy. It was adventure too. I was convinced that I was going to be sent to Malta or Italy or some exotic place. Instead, I was stationed in Buckinghamshire.” Gran laughed when Cara sat back a bit. “I told you it isn’t much of a story.”
“What were you assigned to do?” Cara asked.
Gran waved her hand. “I was a clerk. At first I was nothing more than a glorified runner, zipping between army offices, but I had a knack for note taking and could type thanks to a secretarial course I’d taken when I was seventeen.”
Gran picked up a piece of paper from the box and handed it to Cara. “There’s a photograph of me on the day I left home.”
Cara looked at the picture of a very young Gran standing in front of a white door, wearing civilian clothes and the same brilliant smile Cara knew so well. She passed the photo to Liam.
“My old ration book,” said Gran, passing over the green book with thin, dry pages that crackled beneath Cara’s fingers. “Iris Parsons” was written in looping blue ink on the front.
“I didn’t use it until I was demobbed at the end of the war. Then we were given clothing coupons, cigarettes, and chocolate, and sent on our way.
“And here are Steve’s letters to me. Do you remember much of Granddad, Cara?”
She shook her head. “Only a little.”
Gran nodded. “You were so young when he died. He was a good man.” Gran lifted a bundle tied up with pale pink ribbon. “These are why I asked your father to keep the box in his safe. These are more precious to me than the world.”
“Can I read them?” Cara asked.
“You’d better let me have a look first. Ours was a whirlwind romance. We met and four months later we were married, although we hardly had any time together. Peace had been declared in Europe, and your granddad was sent to Germany to help with the stand-down. He wrote me love letters that would’ve made the censors blush.”
Liam barked a laugh, and Cara flushed. “Gran.”
Gran arched a brow. “I’ll have you know, I was young once.”
“I don’t doubt it,” muttered Cara.
Gran slid her glasses on and scanned the first letter in the bundle. “Here, this one is fine for your young eyes.”
Cara took it gingerly and read out loud, “ ‘Dearest Boudicca—’ Why did he call you Boudicca?”
“Because he used to say I was queen of the Britons, and when we fought, I would never surrender.”
“ ‘Dearest Boudicca,’ ” Cara started again. “ ‘The nights are colder now and they say we may see snow tonight. I know I say this in all of my letters, but I wish I was dancing with you again.’ ”
“We met at a dance in London,” Gran interrupted.
Cara resumed reading. “ ‘Instead I’m in a sorry excuse for a tent with Miller and Harrison to keep me company. I’d rather be back outside your billet in Fenny Stratford. I miss you more—’ ”
“Did you say Fenny Stratford?” Liam asked.
“Yes. It was perhaps the most boring place in all of England during the war, but at least we were safe,” said Gran.
“Where is that?” Cara asked.
“I told you. Buckinghamshire,” said Gran.
“Who did you clerk for?” Cara asked.
Gran shrugged. “Whoever needed me. There were army offices there, just like all over England at the time.”
“What was your home base?” Liam pushed.
“I believe this is my story to tell, young man. If you’ll let me tell it,” said Gran sharply.
The air snapped with tension, and Cara looked between Liam and Gran.
Yes, he’d asked a few questions, but nothing out of the ordinary. He was curious, just like she was.
Gran, seeming to realize that she’d been rude, set a photograph she was holding down, and said, “I apologize, Liam. I didn’t mean to be short with you—it’s just that I have something of a headache.”
But Cara knew better—Gran had done this to her too many times before. Cara wasn’t going to allow her to shut things down now. Desperate to keep the conversation going, Cara dove back into the box and pulled out a photograph.
“Tell me about this one,” she demanded.
She held up the photograph of Gran, young and pretty, standing next to a man. His arm was looped around her waist, as though someone had interrupted them while dancing and they’d looked back.
“That’s Edwin Godfrey,” said Gran, her voice thick.
“Who was he?” she asked.
“My superior officer.”
“You danced together?” Cara asked.
“The rules could be loose sometimes,” said Gran.
Cara pulled out another photo from the box. “And this?”
Gran sat between two men, Edwin Godfrey and another, her head tipped so that her hair brushed Edwin’s shoulder.
“Oh, who knows?” Gran said, snatching up the photographs of her with Edwin Godfrey quickly.
Sensing they were now on precarious ground, Cara said, “There was something else in the safe.”
“What’s that, dear?” Gran asked distractedly as she tucked the photographs underneath Granddad’s bundle of letters.
“Why would Mum have your medical records?”
Gran stilled, her eyes fixed on her hands. “Your mother was keeping them safe for me. So many things were in disarray during the move.”
“Gran,” Cara said carefully. “I want to ask you again: What was the fight about? I could hear Mum’s side, but I don’t know yours.”
All at once, her vibrant, irrepressible Gran went pale and waxy, and she looked every bit her age. “That was the last conversation I had with my daughter. A fight. A ridiculous, stupid fight.”