by Julia Kelly
“I’m ready.”
Her friends followed as she opened the door. Mary, Nigella, and Lizzie waited there for her. How they knew she’d arisen when neither Vera nor Charlie had left the room, she didn’t know, but she didn’t question it. They formed a semicircle around her as they walked, protecting her in the only way she’d let them.
Their drills were conducted by Bombardier Silhour, a tiny, thin woman with a lemon-sucking face. Silhour was unrelenting at the best of times, refusing to give quarter to any girls’ complaints. The only acknowledgment she gave Louise was the briefest nod, and then she was shouting commands, drilling them as hard as ever.
The rest of the day was far from normal with all of the stares Louise earned as she walked through the teaching halls. Every time she caught someone’s eye, she refused to flinch. She had a job to do, and she was going to do it no matter what had happened to her. Clinging to that, she just might survive.
However, her plan faltered when, leaving a debriefing on a new detection technology, she found Captain Jones waiting for her.
“Gunner Bolton,” he said, his hands clasped behind his back.
She saluted him crisply. “Sir.”
“It’s good to see you back.
“Yes, sir.”
His jaw worked as he searched her face. This was not a mere courtesy, she realized. He wanted something from her.
“Is something the matter, sir?” she asked, even though it felt like a silly question. Everything was the matter. Paul was dead. Her life, the one she’d hoped they would plan together, was gone.
“Come with me,” said Captain Jones, turning hard on the heel of his boot and marching down the corridor.
He led her through a series of doors, deep into a part of the building in which she’d never been before. The offices of high-ranking officials lined the corridor, and through open doors she could see uniform-clad secretaries answering phones and typing up notes. No one laughed or jested. Everything here felt weightier, more important.
At last, Captain Jones stopped in front of a nondescript door and knocked. A moment later, a tall, slender man with a staff sergeant’s badge opened it.
“You’re expected, sir,” said the man.
Captain Jones nodded to Louise.
“Through that door,” said the staff sergeant, as she walked into the tiny reception space.
She hesitated and the man said, “It’s all right. You can let yourself in. He knows you’re here.”
The question of who knew she was there leaped to her lips, but one look from Captain Jones stifled it.
Louise opened the door and found herself standing in the middle of a modest room, embellished only by a large map of Europe pinned to a wall. In the center stood a man with his back to her, so that all she could see was that he had perfect carriage and brutally scraped-back gray hair. It surprised her then that when he turned around, she found him to be in his early sixties with features carved by fatigue and worry. Still, he wore a major general’s stars, and that made her stand up a little straighter.
“Sir,” said Captain Jones. “This is Gunner Louise Keene.”
She slid a glance at Captain Jones, wondering at him dropping her married name, but the major general cleared his throat. “Thank you, Captain. What I have to say to Gunner Keene is a delicate matter.”
Captain Jones saluted and retreated before Louise could even think to protest.
The door shut, and she was alone with the major general. He sighed and leaned a hip on the desk he stood in front of. “Do you know who I am?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she studied him. “Major General Garson,” she said after a moment. “Vera’s uncle.”
“That’s right,” he said, pulling out a cigarette and tapping it on the packet. Then, as though remembering himself, he offered one to her.
“No, thank you, sir. We aren’t allowed while we’re in Ack-Ack,” she said.
“Quite right, quite right,” he muttered, striking a match. “Can’t have shaky hands.”
“No, sir.”
Through a puff of smoke, he squinted at her. “At ease, Gunner. As you’re probably aware, my niece asked me to look into the matter of your husband’s death and why you were not informed.”
Her throat constricted until she could hardly trust herself to form words. Instead she nodded.
“Vera is my only niece, and I’m not so hardened that I can’t tell you there are some times when I wonder if she doesn’t have me wrapped around her little finger.” He sighed and scratched his brow. “I told her that the army rarely makes mistakes when it comes to informing families about a loved one killed in action, and I suspect His Majesty’s Royal Air Force rarely does either. It’s a delicate matter, and we take it very seriously. Still, she asked me to make some calls and find out what happened in the case of your flight lieutenant.”
“And you’ve found something,” she prompted him. She’d seen men do this too many times before. He was dragging things out, not wanting to tell her something that would upset her, when he didn’t know the half of how tough she really was.
Major General Garson picked up a file off the desk and flipped it open. “Look halfway down the page.”
She took the file and scanned until she saw what he was speaking of written in spiky black letters. Married.
“If it’s recorded, I don’t understand why I wasn’t informed,” she said, handing the folder back.
“Perhaps you would like to sit down, Gunner Keene,” said the major general.
She swallowed. “I’d prefer to stand, sir.”
“I spoke to a few of the men who knew Flight Lieutenant Bolton. As you can imagine, men thrown into close proximity during times of war spend a good deal of their days talking about their sweethearts. They said Bolton was indeed married. To a prominent barrister’s daughter, a Lenora Robinson. Their fathers are in the same Inns of Court and have known each other for years.”
Slowly, Louise sank down into a chair, her hand covering her mouth. “That’s not possible. He can’t have been married before.”
“I’m afraid it is, my dear,” said Major General Garson softly.
“But he could’ve been divorced. Maybe his men neglected to mention that.” She looked up hopefully, but Vera’s uncle shook his head.
“They were married just after he enlisted, when the war broke out. No one had heard of any divorce and there’s no record of it. I asked,” he said. “Mrs. Lenora Bolton is still living in London. She’s a volunteer ambulance driver.”
“But we were married.” Her eyes brimmed with the tears she’d been waiting on for four days. “By Father Norwood. I have a ring. There was a wedding breakfast. We were husband and wife in every way.”
The major general shifted uncomfortably. “There are stories about unscrupulous clergymen who’ve lost their parishes, looking for a way to make a few quick shillings. They perform a fast ceremony, no questions asked. Or the man may have been a charlatan of another breed, posing as a man of the cloth for his own gain. Despite the rosy picture of British togetherness you see in the papers, this war has driven people to do unspeakable things to one another.”
“There were witnesses,” she whispered. It had been a real wedding in every sense, but if Paul had been married before, the marriage was invalid. He was nothing more than a bigamist, and she was his unwitting victim.
All at once, rage filled her, as easy explanations for so many things began to present themselves. How it was almost impossible for Paul to secure leave. His refusal to allow her anywhere near his base. The way he’d written to her of his passion until she was certain she felt the same way, letting their letters stand in place of any real commitment. He’d proposed to her after a quarrel. Had he married her for fear that she would slip away from him, or had it just been part of his plan, another step in his quest for the love and adoration of the women around him?
It must have been so easy for him. He was a pilot, handsome and sophisticated. He could have had a
woman in every single village he’d visited—more if he’d wanted to—and they would never have been any the wiser because by the time they were in love with him he would be gone.
So what had she been? A girl desperate for someone to give her permission to dream of a life away from home. A fool who didn’t know how to see that the man she thought she loved was nothing more than a liar. An easy target. A conquest.
“You understand that my counterparts at the RAF are very concerned about Flight Lieutenant Bolton’s behavior if any of this is true,” said Major General Garson with a cough. “He was a decorated pilot and a war hero. If word were to get out . . .”
Louise shot to her feet, her fists pressed hard against the sides of her thighs. “The RAF need not worry about me. I am embarrassed, humiliated, and heartbroken. I have no desire for anyone else to know the reasons why.”
“Right then. Well, my sincerest condolences, Gunner Keene.”
Her maiden name was a slash across the heart as the major general showed her to the door. Mercifully, Captain Jones hadn’t lingered. With a swipe at the tears that had pooled under her eyes, she gave a nod to the staff sergeant.
Her heels clicked hard and purposefully as she walked down the hall, back to the teaching wing of the building. But she didn’t glance at the clock to check the time and gauge what briefing she was meant to be in. Instead, she walked straight out of the iron doors and onto the street.
Louise had never jumped base before, because she knew the consequences. However, none of those crossed her mind as she walked to the bus. She had no money on her, but the ticket taker took one look at her uniform and waved her on.
She disembarked at Piccadilly Circus and took the tube to the South Kensington stop. Then it was a ten-minute walk to Cranley Gardens. Paul’s street.
He’d told her often enough about his pokey little bedsit in the back of a nondescript building in Chelsea. He’d even listened to her say the address, amused as she let the glamour of the London street roll off her tongue. But standing in Cranley Gardens, she didn’t see a run-down building at number 12. It was a mansion flat, and no buildings on the street had suffered a direct hit from a bomb. He’d told her lie after lie after lie, and she’d believed him, naive in her trust.
Mounting the steps, she leaned hard on the buzzer for the second-floor flat until she realized it was ridiculous to expect anyone to answer. Paul was dead.
A ground-floor window a few feet from the door squeaked open, and a woman with her hair tied up in a yellow cloth stuck her head out. “Ring it any longer and you’ll break it, love.”
“I—I’m sorry,” said Louise, dropping her hand to her side.
The woman looked her up and down. “Are you trying the Bolton residence?”
“Yes.”
“You knew the man of the house?”
Her wedding ring hung heavy on her hand. “Yes.”
“Then you’d better come inside for a cuppa.”
The woman disappeared back through the window before Louise could protest, and seconds later the door opened. The woman ushered her inside and through an open door on the ground floor.
“I’m Mrs. Fay. Now, you just sit there.” The woman pointed to a sagging brocade armchair. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
Louise sat, at a loss in this strange flat, as she listened to the sounds of tea being made in the other room. The whoosh of water filling the kettle. The clang of metal on the stove. The clink of best china being pulled down from the cupboard.
After a few minutes, Mrs. Fay pushed back through the door, smoothing her lace-trimmed apron as she went.
“Now, that’ll just be a moment to boil. How did you know Mr. Bolton?” Mrs. Fay asked.
Louise swallowed, readying herself to tell the lie she’d thought was the truth until just an hour ago. “He was my husband. I’m sorry if I’m the first person to tell you, but he’s dead.”
“Oh, I know he’s dead all right. Husband, you said?”
Louise lifted her chin. “Yes.”
“Well then, you just let me know if you need a drop of something stronger than tea. I have a bottle of sherry I’ve been saving. Seems to be useful these days.”
Louise stared at the woman, but before she could ask what the woman knew about Paul, the doorbell rang.
“Just one moment, love,” said Mrs. Fay, popping up rather merrily. She did not, Louise realized, poke her head out of the window to greet the visitor but went straight for the door.
An exchange of hushed voices preceded the shuffle of two pairs of feet on carpet, and Mrs. Fay reappeared accompanied by a tall, slender woman with razor-sharp cheekbones and elegant, molded curls that just swept her shoulders. Everything about her was elegance, from the cut of her navy wool dress—not a uniform, Louise noticed with envy—to the fine pearl clips that hung from her ears.
“Good afternoon,” said the newcomer. “I understand that you were married to my husband.”
Here she was, confronted with the living, breathing truth of Paul’s betrayal. This was the Lenora Bolton that Major General Garson had told her about. The barrister’s daughter from a well-heeled, well-respected London family. Looking at her, it was easy to see why Paul had married her. She was beautiful and sophisticated. She made sense with him.
Louise stopped herself. It wasn’t this woman’s fault that Paul was a liar and a cheat and who knew what other number of things any more than it was hers. They were the innocent parties in all of this. It was Paul who’d done them wrong.
Rising to her feet, she said, “I’m not entirely sure what to say except to introduce myself. I’m Louise Keene.”
The woman looked at her outstretched hand with something akin to resigned amusement. “Lenora Bolton, although I’m considering becoming Lenora Robinson again, given the circumstances. I notice you don’t use Paul’s last name.”
“I did, but given what I’ve learned today, I don’t see how I can continue,” Louise said.
Lenora nodded. “I can understand the sentiment. Perhaps, Miss Keene, you’d like to come with me.”
She followed Lenora out of Mrs. Fay’s flat and up the stairs. On the landing, Lenora pulled out a latchkey and unlocked the door.
The flat was nothing like what Paul had told her. It wasn’t a simple bedsit for a student with just a gas ring for making tea. It was beautifully decorated in rich browns, reds, and creams. Books sat lined up on their shelves, waiting for some curious reader to pick them up and sink onto one of the two sofas before the fireplace. Oil paintings of landscapes covered the walls, and the entire place carried the faint scent of furniture polish.
“This is your home,” Louise said.
Lenora nodded. “We were married the month after the war started. Paul had bought the place the year before with the inheritance from his grandfather.”
“Then why did Mrs. Fay have to call you? I assume that’s what she did.”
“It is. I moved back to my parents’ home just around the corner after the first girl arrived. She claimed that she and Paul had been engaged after meeting him in Devon. She’d heard that he was killed and came up here to be with his family as she grieved. Instead, she found me,” said Lenora with a raised brow. “Now I ask Mrs. Fay to keep an eye on things for me and ring me if any other women come around.”
“How many have there been?” Louise asked.
“You make the third.”
Four women. Lenora, Louise, the girl from Devon, and another Louise hoped she’d never meet. Paul had deceived them all, convincing them that he loved them and only them. Making them feel special. Singular. Wanted.
“I don’t understand,” said Louise softly.
Lenora went to a carved silver box on a tiny side table, selecting a cigarette and snapping at the lighter until smoke billowed from her mouth. “Neither do I.”
“Why would he marry me if he was already married to you? Why would he become engaged to those other girls?” she asked.
Lenora sighed. “Paul was a diffi
cult man. He had a deep, almost compulsive need to be loved. You know, his parents thought they wouldn’t be able to have children for the longest time until one day, miraculously, they became pregnant later in life. He was coddled and adored, more toy than child. I think it fed a desire in him to need love constantly from all people, and what better way to get it than to charm any number of convenient women into falling in love with him?”
“But to lie like that . . .”
“Ah yes, well. It appears our late husband was also a compulsive liar and something I believe the psychoanalysts call a narcissist. Apparently it isn’t uncommon among bigamists.” Lenora tapped the edge of her cigarette against a cut glass ashtray. “I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading in my widowhood.”
Louise stared at Lenora. “That’s what you’ve been doing since he died? Reading about bigamists and greeting his former lovers or wives or whatever it is we’re meant to be?”
Lenora laughed. “No, of course not, but this helps pass the time between shifts at the volunteer ambulance corps.”
Despite the woman’s blasé attitude, Louise could hear the hurt in her voice. She had been Paul’s first wife. His real wife. Now she was the one to tell the women he’d left behind the truth about him, illuminating the dark side of the man they’d all loved.
What he’d done was unforgivable. She could see now that he hadn’t fallen in love with her that night in St. Mawgan, as he’d said. Instead, he’d seen her as a target. There was a girl who was simple and vulnerable and ripe for the picking. Except she wasn’t any of those things. In the last few months she’d learned more about herself than she’d ever thought possible. She’d drilled and studied and fought, and now, after all this time, she was the woman she was supposed to be.
She would harden her heart against him, boxing up all the love she’d felt for him and shoving it into the deepest corners of her heart. She’d work and fight and sleep and get up to do it all over again until she was numb to Paul. Then, one day, her heart might heal enough that she stopped loving him.