by Julia Kelly
“I’m very sorry this has happened to you,” said Louise.
Lenora looked at her squarely. “Thank you, Miss Keene. I think you actually mean that.”
“I do. Can I ask you something?”
Lenora inclined her head as Louise pulled out Paul’s compass. All at once, the woman’s strange composure fell.
“Where did you get that?” Lenora asked, brushing the ding in the side of the tiny compass with her fingertip while Louise balanced it in the palm of her hand.
“He gave it to me. He used it as a sort of engagement ring,” Louise said.
“The bastard,” Lenora swore softly. “It was my brother’s. He was a soldier. He died early in the war and this was sent back with his effects.”
“He told me it belonged to his uncle, and that he kept it as a talisman when he was flying.”
Lenora’s lip trembled. “I gave it to him to keep him safe.”
“Then you should take it back,” said Louise.
“I don’t think I can.” A long, shaky draw on her cigarette seemed to calm Lenora, and her next words were firmer. “Keep it or throw it away, you can do what you want with it, but I can’t have it in this flat. Not anymore.”
Not knowing what else to do, Louise tucked the compass back into her pocket.
Setting her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, Lenora leaned down and scribbled something on a scrap of paper. Holding it out, she said, “This is the address of the family home in Barlow. If you ever need anything—someone to talk to or be gin-soaked with who will understand—they’ll know where to find me.”
“Thank you,” said Louise, folding the scrap into her uniform’s breast pocket. She couldn’t imagine ever reaching out to this woman, when what she really wanted was to forget, but there was little else she could do.
“If you’ll take a little unsolicited advice, Miss Keene, go on and live your life. Call this a wartime romance and put it behind you.”
“And what of you?” asked Louise.
Lenora’s gaze fixed on a point out the window. “I’ll be here, greeting Paul’s widows one by one.”
Louise made her way back to her billet, much the way she’d come. It was late, the sky already beginning to turn violet at the farthest reaches of the east.
In her room, she tucked away Lenora’s note, pulled on her battle dress, and retrieved her tin helmet. The other girls would’ve already made their way to Woolwich Depot, and she hurried to make up lost time, her boots slapping loudly against the pavement as she jogged.
When she reached the building, she bounded up the stairs quick as she could. Nearing the top floor, she heard voices. The section hadn’t yet taken to the roof, and were waiting instead in the relative warmth and dry of the indoors. She stopped before the door, pulling her shoulders back and shaking her hair from her face. Then, determined, she opened the door.
The room fell silent when they saw her. All of them, the girls, Cartruse, Hatfield, and Williams—even Captain Jones—searched her face. There was fragility there, she knew that, but her strength would hold her together. She would break in her own time, and she wouldn’t be ashamed, but tonight she would show them who she really was. Louise Keene, Haybourne born, ATS trained. A woman in her own right.
Paul had stolen her past from her. He would not steal her future.
“My apologies for being late, sir,” said Louise, addressing Captain Jones. “It will not happen again.”
“Gunner Bolton,” said Captain Jones, clearing his throat. “All of us would understand if you wished to take the bereavement time allowed to you.”
Her fists clenched, nails cutting half-moons into her palms. It felt good. The pain grounded her, reminded her to stay focused on the present.
“I’m needed on the predictor, sir,” she said.
“As you wish, Bolton,” said Captain Jones.
“I think, Captain Jones, that given the circumstances, I should like to be addressed as Gunner Keene from now on.”
A dropped pin would’ve rattled as loud as a machine gun through the room. Slowly, Captain Jones nodded. “I will see to it that the RA and the ATS are informed of your decision.”
“Thank you,” said Louise.
She moved to an empty seat at the little card table they’d set up in the corner of the room. Sitting down, she looked each and every one of her compatriots square in the eye before picking up the battered deck of cards on the table. “Who has the scoring sheet?”
“I do,” said Charlie, her voice cracking a little.
“Then let’s play.”
The cards whispered against each other as she shuffled and dealt. It took two hands of gin before the room relaxed a little. Four before Charlie hooted in triumph that she’d beaten Nigella badly.
Louise’s focus was so intent that she hardly heard Cartruse pull up a chair next to her until he was close enough to whisper, “You’re sure you’re all right, Lou?”
She stiffened but kept her eyes on her cards. “No. But I will be.”
And somehow, she knew it was the truth.
23
CARA
Cara woke up, curled against the unmistakable heat of a man’s body. She shifted a little, pressing back against Liam’s chest as the arm thrown across her stomach drew her a little closer. Liam McGown was a sleep snuggler, a fact that hardly surprised her but made her smile nonetheless.
She lay there a moment, light spilling freely through the gauzy curtains because they’d neglected to draw the heavy cream-colored drapes the night before. This was the moment when any regrets she had about kissing him and inviting him into her room last night would surely surface, but there were none. Instead, she felt relaxed and loose, as though she’d been on holiday for a month.
Liam stirred behind her, pressing his lips to the back of her neck. His voice was all gravel when he said, “Good morning.”
She turned around, careful to keep his arm in place, and kissed him. “Good morning.”
“Weren’t we supposed to meet for breakfast today?” he asked with a lopsided grin.
“At least now we know we won’t be late.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he said, rolling her on top of him as he kissed her deeper.
They made it down to breakfast just before the hotel stopped serving at nine o’clock, grinning at each other as the maître d’ sighed and set his jaw before showing them to a sunny table.
They ate quickly and then climbed in the car to drive to Haybourne. It was still a small village, although there was an industrial park on the outskirts now that boasted office space with all of the modern business conveniences. Haybourne, it would seem, was growing.
Cara was glad Liam was driving, because as they rolled down the village high street, she found her hands had started to tremble just a little. They were so close to finding out the last pieces to the puzzle they’d been worrying over for weeks. They were going to finally meet Kate, the one person, it seemed, who might be able to draw together all of the disparate parts of Louise’s story.
“Here it is,” said Liam, pulling over into a parking spot in front of a real estate agent’s office and killing the ignition. “This is where Bakeford’s used to be.”
They both looked at the storefront, but there was nothing to indicate that it had once been a grocer’s. No charming painted sign, no wide, antique counters that the real estate agent’s office had kept to preserve a sense of the space’s history. It was just a building.
“It’s a little disappointing,” she said.
“Things change.”
“Still.”
“Hopefully Kate will be more helpful,” he said, starting the car again.
Cara sat through the drive to the care home with her hands clasped together. She’d flipped through the last pages of the diary again at the hotel when Liam had been in the shower, thinking back on all she’d read. Paul was the kind of man who Cara might’ve fallen for when she was younger—had fallen for, if she was being honest. He’d swept Louis
e off her feet in a whirlwind romance, just as Simon had done. Yet when Paul was deployed, Louise hadn’t sat at home and let the worry and waiting consume her. He and the fight with her mother may have been the push she needed to enlist and leave Haybourne, but the decision had been Louise’s alone, and Cara admired her for that.
Liam pulled into the care home’s parking lot and put on the brake. “Are you ready?”
“I think so,” she said.
“Nervous?”
“More than I thought I’d be. I want to know the answers, but I’m also worried about what happened to Louise. I know that sounds ridiculous but—”
“You’re invested,” he said.
She nodded.
He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”
The wind picked up Cara’s hair as they walked to the front door hand in hand. She stole a glance at Liam, glad he was here with her. Glad Nicole had brought up the diary in an obvious bid to throw the two of them together. She owed her friend a phone call after all of this, or at least a text to say she’d snogged the professor.
A short, thin woman with a bob of silver hair rose from an armchair in the reception area. “Miss Hargraves, I’m Laurel Mathers.”
“Please, call me Cara,” she said, extending her hand.
“Then call me Laurel.” Kate’s daughter slid her gaze over to Liam with curiosity, no doubt having caught the two of them walking hand in hand into the building.
“This is Liam McGown,” Cara said. “He’s been helping me with figuring out who the diary belonged to. We’re neighbors.”
“How nice it must be to have such good neighbors,” said Laurel, making Cara blush. “If you want to follow me, my mother’s having one of her good days.”
“Is her health very delicate?” Liam asked.
“As delicate as one can expect for a woman of her age. But the doctors tell me that her heart is strong and she’s as lucid as she’s ever been. She’s excited that you’re coming. She’s been asking after you for the past three days.”
Laurel led them through brightly lit corridors painted in soothing neutrals that gave one a sense of being in a very calm hospital or hotel. Finally, they reached a door on which Laurel knocked softly and opened. “Mum, Cara Hargraves and Liam McGown are here to see you.”
“There’s a man too?” Cara heard a voice from the room inside. “If I’d have known, I would’ve put on a bit of lipstick.”
Laurel pushed the door wide, revealing a big open room with a cluster of chairs around a hospital bed. In the middle of it, looking at them with blatant curiosity, lay Kate. Her hair had been curled in a set, and she had on a bed jacket tied with a pink silk ribbon over a plain white nightgown.
“Mrs. Mathers, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” said Cara, extending her hand.
“So you’re the one who found my cousin’s old diary,” said Kate, her eyes sharp. “Where was it?”
“Hidden away in a house I was clearing out. I work for an antiques dealer and sometimes we go in and help families figure out what they can sell.”
“Whose house was it?” Kate asked.
“A woman named Lenora Robinson,” she said.
Kate’s brows jumped. “Now that is a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”
“You know her?” Liam asked.
“I know of her, and the fact that the two of you don’t makes me think that we might be here for a while. Why don’t you sit down? Laurel, could you see if we could have some tea for our guests?”
They took two of the maroon upholstered chairs and pulled them closer to Kate’s bed as Laurel went off to find a staff member.
“She’ll be gone for a little while, because asking for tea at eleven o’clock in the morning is going to throw the staff into a tizzy. They’ll have to find the matron and it will take an age, which is good,” said Kate.
“You don’t want your daughter to hear what you have to say?” Cara asked.
Kate shook her head. “Laurel and Margaret, my eldest, loved Louise dearly. They called her their auntie. But because Louise lived so far away they rarely saw her and she became something of a mythic figure. I think it would be too painful to either of my girls to find out what really happened, so I’m going to tell you what I know as quickly as I can.
“You said there was a diary,” Kate prompted.
Cara opened her purse and pulled it out of the plastic bag she’d put it in to protect it. Kate’s eyes warmed as she took it.
“Do you know, I gave this notebook to Louise for her eighteenth birthday. It cost me one shilling and six pence,” said Kate.
“She wrote that she started it at her father’s suggestion, but also to spite her mother,” said Liam.
Kate laughed. “That sounds like Louise. She was a quiet one when we were growing up, but there was always a stubborn streak running through her. She and her mother never saw eye to eye. Aunt Rose could be a hard woman for anyone to love, but especially her daughter.”
Cara watched as the old woman smoothed a hand gnarled with arthritis over the cloth cover. “If you open it, you’ll find a photograph of her tucked in the front cover. It says it was taken on the Embankment,” she said.
Kate did just that and held the picture up to the light. “Isn’t she pretty? And so happy too. I’ve never seen this photograph before. One of the girls in her unit must’ve taken it when they were stationed in London.” Kate cleared her throat. “Well, I suppose I should start at the beginning.
“You’ll probably know that Louise ran off to register for the ATS. We were sent to training camp together in Leicester, but she was selected for special assignment.”
“Yes, Ack-Ack Command,” said Cara.
“It was hard to be separated, but we wrote so many letters to one another in those days that it almost felt as though I knew the other girls in her command. And then there was Paul. He’d swept through her life, and in the space of a month, I really do think she was in love with him.”
“It seems so fast,” said Cara.
Kate smiled. “Perhaps it was, but she was young and it wasn’t a time for logic when it came to matters of the heart.
“At first I was as excited for her about Paul as she was. Louise never noticed the way the boys looked at her in school. I had a flair for the dramatic in those days and loved being at the center of everything, but Louise was more reserved. Somewhere along the way she got it into her head that she was quiet and shy, which couldn’t have been further from the truth if you really got to know her.
“The ATS was good for her. It gave her purpose, and I think it was the making of her. She loved those girls in her unit fiercely, and I think it boosted her confidence to know that she was doing something that could actually help save lives in the war. But as all of this was happening, she began to mention gaps between Paul’s letters. At first I didn’t think anything of it. I knew firsthand how exhausting an army day could be, and he was hunting submarines with Coastal Command. All terribly daring stuff. But then Louise mentioned that she was frustrated he wasn’t receiving leave and that made me sit up.
“They worked us hard in the ATS, but everyone knows that a soldier needs to blow off a little steam from time to time. I could believe that Paul’s commanding officer was blocking longer requests for leave, but when he shot down Louise’s suggestion that she come and see him, I became suspicious.”
“She wrote about fighting over it in their letters,” Cara said.
Kate nodded. “Then you know how angry Louise was. Paul must’ve sensed it too, because a few weeks later he showed up at her billet in London and proposed. I think he was terrified she was going to chuck him aside for a soldier or a sailor or another flier.”
“But she loved him,” said Cara.
“Yes she did, but Paul . . . Paul was a complicated man.”
“We know they married, but after the wedding the diary becomes vague,” said Liam.
Kate looked pained. “Then you don’t k
now?”
For a moment Cara wondered if Kate would continue on, but then Louise’s cousin said, “Paul died. He was shot down while flying a mission over the Channel.”
It felt as though the air had been sucked out of the room.
“That’s horrible,” said Cara.
Kate shook her head, her mouth a grim line. “That’s not all. Louise found out when a bundle of her letters was returned to her with a note from Paul’s commanding officer. She was devastated, of course, but she was also angry. As his widow, she should’ve been informed properly. The branches of service had ways of doing this. It was only when her friend did some digging that she realized she wasn’t Paul’s widow at all.”
“What do you mean?” Cara asked.
“Paul was already married.”
“What?” Already married? Was that even possible?
“But they had a ceremony, didn’t they?” Liam asked.
“They did. I don’t know whether the priest knew, but as far as I could tell, the marriage was never recorded anywhere official. Things were chaotic then, and it was easy to pull off any number of scams. I doubt Paul was the only one. Lenora Robinson, the woman whose home you were in, was his first wife. His real wife, I guess you’d say.”
Cara and Liam looked at one another, both of their mouths hanging open. Reaching for the diary, Cara opened it to the last page and laid it out on the bed as she read the last entry aloud, the sense of love and loss even more poignant now that she knew what had really happened.
“Oh, poor Lou. Paul was her first romance and the first man to make her feel special. If they’d been able to see each other for more than a handful of days, she would’ve realized on her own what he was sooner or later. She would’ve done what most of us have done and cried and raged and healed with time on her own.”
“What happened to Louise after that last entry?” Cara asked.
Kate studied her. “You want a happy ending, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.” Cara knew that life didn’t always have happy endings, but she wanted it so badly for Louise. She wanted it so badly for herself.