“Have a seat,” the man said. “I’ll make some tea.”
He turned and left the room before Tayte could express his preference for coffee if there was any. Although the man’s haste to put the kettle on made Tayte realise that the proffered tea was not an option. He turned to Eliza who had already sat down.
“When in Rome,” he said.
Tayte was wondering now where Mena was and he supposed Eliza was, too. That they had been invited into this man’s home was telling in light of their reason for being there, and that the man who had invited them in had not denied knowing the woman they had come to see or redirected them to another address compounded Tayte’s belief that they had reached journey’s end. But where was Mena? Tayte pondered the question as he gravitated towards the photographs on the sideboard.
There were around twenty pictures in all - of family scenes in frames of various shapes and sizes - and somehow Tayte knew he was looking at Mena when he saw her in one photograph and then in another. She was an old woman now, but her eyes seemed to transcend time, as if he were looking at the young girl he’d seen in the photographs Jonathan had shown him on his first visit to the Lasseter house.
He must have become lost in those images longer than he realised because it seemed like no time had passed before the dining room door opened again and the tray of tea arrived. The man carrying it set it down on the table on a large round mat and Tayte went back to his client and pulled out the chair beside her. The man began to pour and the heavy-looking teapot caused his hand to rock the spout from side to side as the steaming brown liquid filled the cups.
“You can’t beat a good, strong cuppa,” he said. Then he paused and looked up. “I’m forgetting my manners,” he added “I’m Kenneth Wells. Please help yourselves to milk and sugar.”
Eliza sat forward, reaching for the milk. “Thank you,” she said and Tayte noticed that Wells was studying her. He was blatant about it and Eliza soon noticed. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
Wells’ cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “No, there’s nothing wrong. It’s just that you look so much like her. I mean how she was when we first met.”
“Is my mother here?” Eliza asked.
Wells drew a deep breath. He pulled out a chair and sat opposite them, heavy limbed, like it took all his effort to do so. He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “She passed away almost a year ago.”
Tayte’s eyes were drawn to the milk jug in Eliza’s hand as her strength seemed to give out and the jug crashed down onto the table, spilling the milk.
She tutted and shook her head at herself. “Look what I’ve done.”
“Think nothing of it,” Wells said. “I’ll fetch a cloth in a minute. It’ll soon clean up.”
Tayte turned to face Eliza. “I’m so sorry,” he said, and he could see that Eliza wanted to smile back but she couldn’t.
Wells put a teaspoon of sugar in his tea and stirred it in, tinkling the china. “I wish I could have broken the news to you more gently,” he said. “But I’m not much good around these things.”
“That’s okay,” Eliza said. “And thank you for the thought. Some things just have to be said, don’t they?”
Wells nodded. “I had no idea Mena had any children. That’s come as something of a surprise to me.”
“It was to me,” Eliza said. “I only wish I’d found out sooner.”
“Quite,” Wells said, gently nodding his head.
Tayte picked up on the name Wells had used. “You called her Mena?”
“Yes, I knew her several years before she changed her name. She was always Mena to me.”
“How did you meet her?” Eliza asked.
“It was at the Towers hospital in Leicester where I worked as a librarian. I suppose you could say that we had our love of books in common because she later told me she used to distribute books around the wards at the Leicester hospitals during the war.” Wells raised a smile to the memory. “She was my best customer,” he added. “Looking back, I’ve no doubt that she preferred to live inside her books over the real world and I can’t blame her. When I retired I used to take my own books to her and sometimes I’d read to her. She liked that. We’d become good friends by then and when I heard she was being transferred to the private care home in Market Harborough, I moved here to be closer. After a time I persuaded her to come and live with me.”
“How did she cope with that?” Tayte asked. “I mean coming out into the world again after so long.”
“It must have been difficult for her,” Eliza added.
Wells smiled again, more fully this time. “It took years off her in a matter of days,” he said. “We had ten good years together after she left Logan House and I’m thankful for every day. I’ll never forget the first time we went to the British Library. Mena was like a child again. Overwhelmed, she was. I never managed to get her abroad, but she had a grand tour of Britain, I can tell you. My wife died when I was still a relatively young man and I found it very difficult to be with anyone else after that. I think we helped one another a great deal. At least, I like to think I helped her as much as I know she helped me.”
“From what you’ve told us, I’m sure you did,” Tayte said. “So you and Mena never married?”
“No. Neither of us wanted that. Our relationship was born out of good friendship and that’s how it remained. We were two people sharing our lives with one-another. And with the ghosts of our pasts, you might say.”
“Danny Danielson?” Tayte said, knowing that Wells couldn’t have been referring to anyone else.
Wells nodded. “Danny, yes. Mena never really got over her Danny and I suppose I was the same about my wife, Fiona. We didn’t want to get over them, you see?”
Wells settled back on his chair for the first time since he’d sat down. “Mena would talk about Danny all the time when I first met her - when she didn’t have her head in a book. She’d tell me about the dances they would go to and the dreams they shared. And she would go quiet after a time, as if by talking about those days she somehow managed to find her way back there - to her Danny. She could be gone for hours then, just staring out the window or at the wall. She never stopped waiting for him, although she spoke of him less when she came here.” He laughed to himself. “I suppose she was kept too busy with all the family around her then. I know she liked that.”
“Can I ask how Mena died?” Eliza said.
Wells leant in on his elbows again. “She had a cranial aneurism,” he said. “That’s what the doctors told me. Neither of us knew anything about it until it was too late. It happened one night last March. I managed to get her to hospital, but it was too severe - inoperable they said. She passed away a few hours later and I was glad to have had the chance to say goodbye. The last thing she said to me was that she was going to West Virginia. She was smiling at me and talking about a river and a low valley, describing everything like she really could see it. It gives me a great deal of comfort knowing that she at least believed it was true.”
Wells went on to recount Mena’s life from the day she came to live at Sutton Bassett. They talked for an hour or more, eventually migrating to the garden where the pale sun had begun to slip towards the horizon. Wells largely revealed those years that Mena had been with him through the photographs he’d taken of her and of the family that had embraced her into their lives, and Eliza had remarked that Mena looked happy in every single image, which seemed to lift her spirits. Tayte was sorry to have missed Mena by so few months, but he was glad to learn that her life had found such kindness before its end.
When they came back into the house, Tayte felt his palms go clammy and it wasn’t because of the sudden change in air temperature. It was because he had a question that he was compelled to ask and although his client appeared to be handling the emotional turmoil of both finding her birth mother and losing her again in such a short space of time, he knew it had to be difficult for her.
“I don’t wish to appear insensitiv
e,” he said, addressing Wells, yet looking at Eliza initially. “But someone else has been trying to find Mena recently - I believe in connection with Danny Danielson. I was wondering if you have any idea why that might be.”
Wells didn’t take any time to reply. “Yes, I think I might,” he said. “I was going to show you something before you left. I’ll go and fetch it.”
They waited in the dining room and now that they were alone Tayte asked Eliza how she was.
“Oh, so-so,” Eliza said. “I don’t really know how I feel to be honest. I have no memories to look back on. It’s not like I knew Mena, is it? Only what you’ve told me. But it upsets me to think that I never will.”
Tayte just nodded and wished he was better at this sort of thing.
“I should like to visit her grave before we go home,” Eliza added.
“Yes, of course,” Tayte said. “We’ll go directly after we’ve finished here. There should be enough light.”
Wells came back into the room. He was carrying a brown jiffy bag.
“This arrived in the post a few weeks ago,” he said as he sat down. “It was originally sent to Mena at Logan House and they sent it on.”
Edward Buckley, Tayte thought, supposing that he had to have been the one who sent it. Wells slipped the contents of the envelope out and Tayte took a closer look at the packaging. The postmark told him it was from Hampshire, confirming his thoughts.
“It’s a bible,” Wells said, holding up a black book that had a large golden cross in the centre. “There are some letters, too.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Wells slipped two letters from the bible and laid them out on the table. “I’ve read everything,” he said. “And there’s a logical order to it. You should read this introductory letter first.”
He slid a folded sheet of cream-coloured paper across the table.
“Shall I read it out?” Tayte asked Eliza.
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
Tayte unfolded the letter. The paper was crisp - recently used. “It’s dated December 14th,” he said. “It’s signed by Edward Buckley.”
Dear Mena,
How can I ever begin to explain the things that I have waited so long to say? And yet, now that Mary has at last found peace I feel that I can - that I must. You may ask why I’ve waited all these years and I would answer that I have waited for Mary. And yet, now that the time has arrived, my words and my actions feel entirely selfish, and while they will offer you no consolation I can only hope that if nothing else they will provide you with a degree of resolution. Some things should not be taken to the grave.
Enclosed you will find Mary’s bible, sent to me shortly before she died, and an airmail letter. Together they will explain everything, although no forgiveness on my part is sought, for I surely deserve none.
Your servant,
Edward Buckley.
Tayte handed the letter back to Wells. “It arrived too late for Mena,” he said, thinking that it was perhaps a good thing for her sake given what he expected to find in the bible and the remaining letter. He expected Wells to pass the other letter to him now, but he didn’t.
“This comes next,” Wells said, handing Tayte the bible.”
It was heavier than it looked for its size: the pages thin and densely packed between the covers. Tayte supposed from its worn, almost threadbare appearance in places that it must have been Mary’s for most of her life.
“If you look towards the back,” Wells said, “You’ll find two handwritten accounts. One from Mary - the other from Edward.”
Tayte opened the bible and flicked to the further handwriting that was written at the back as though to attest to its whole truth and nothing but the truth: Mary’s and Edward’s sworn statements. Mary’s came first and it was written in what appeared as a child-like scrawl, as though the writer was fighting to control the pen. Tayte thought he would struggle to read it, but it was nothing he wasn’t used to from the countless old transcripts he was often faced with. He cleared his throat and began to read Mary Lasseter’s words.
My dearest Mena,
What became of our youth? Where did those happy days go? I am trying to find my way back there now - to those innocent times before the war began, when we were sisters again, you and I. But I cannot. 1944 is like a fog in my mind, so dense that neither eyes nor memory can penetrate it. If I could find those days again, Mena, I would live so happily there with you forever. But I am sorry to say that they are long gone now for both of us, and with such pain in my heart I must tell you why.
Towards the end of 1944 I received word from Edward that he would be in Paris for a short time, so I applied for overseas service and within a week I was transferred to SHAEF - the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force, which was based in Paris at the time. I hadn’t seen Edward since he’d left for Holland two months earlier and after the fighting at Arnhem I knew I had to see him if I could.
A week or so before my transfer, I received a letter from home. It was from Mother. She was upset, saying that you intended to marry Danny and that you were going to live in America after the war. Then I received another letter - this time from Joan Cartwright. It was brief and to the point. Joan wrote that Danny had raped you at St Peter’s church on your first date together. She said that you had told her this yourself and it left me so confused. I could not understand why you still wanted to see this man, let alone marry him and go off to live in America with him. Joan said that she was writing to tell me this for your sake, Mena, adding that she thought someone in the family should know. Naturally, I thought you were making a terrible mistake.
I didn’t tell Edward about the letters. We shared five happy days and nights together in Paris and in all truth the whole matter could not have been further from my mind. Then on our last evening together we were going out for a meal at La Closerie des Lilas in the Montparnasse district. I remember it vividly. But then how could I ever forget it?
November 1944. Montparnasse District, Paris.
It had been raining hard all afternoon and apart from the few busy tables that sheltered beneath the restaurant canopy, the chairs outside La Closerie des Lilas - the pleasure-garden of the lilacs - were tipped in to allow the rain to run off. It was early evening and the streets were as lively as ever since the liberation despite the inclement weather.
The damp had penetrated Mary Lasseter’s coat. A shiver ran through her and she pulled harder at Edward’s arm as they skipped between the trees on the boulevard outside the restaurant, giggling as lovers might in the rain. She wished she’d parked the staff-car closer, but she hadn’t wanted to risk getting into trouble over the misuse of army property - not that it mattered now. They were almost there and the soft amber glow at the restaurant windows looked warm and inviting.
“Quickly!” Mary called.
She tugged Edward’s arm again and they made it to the canopy, still laughing as they removed their hats and coats and straightened their hair. They were both in dress uniform and although Mary thought Edward looked as handsome as ever, she was sick of the olive drab and khaki she’d become too accustomed to wearing, even down to her underwear.
Edward held her back as she made to go inside. “Wait,” he said. “I’ve a surprise for you.”
Mary smiled. “What?” she said. “What is it?”
Edward grinned. “Come with me,” he said, and he took her hand and pushed through the doors. He stayed ahead of her as they fought their way through the crowd.
“Un moment, Monsieur.” It was the maître d’ in a black suit and bow tie: a middle-aged man who, judging from his paunch, had eaten well during the occupation. “Avez-vous une réservation? Nous sommes très occupés ce soir.”
“Naturellement,” Buckley replied. He winked at Mary and said, “Apparently they’re very busy this evening. Good job I booked.” He turned back to the maître d’. “C’est Buckley. Une table pour trois.”
The maître d’ checked his reservation list, running
a firm finger down the page. He smiled. “Oui, naturellement, Capitaine Buckley,” he said. He collected two menus from a side table. “Veuillez me suivre.”
“He wants us to follow him,” Buckley said, and they moved through the restaurant, passing a barman in a white shirt and apron who was tending a crowded, well-stocked bar laden with bottles that were stacked three shelves high. “At least Jerry didn’t leave the place dry,” Buckley added.
The restaurant furnishings were rich mahogany and red leather and the tables were neat with starched white cloths. At a glance, Mary thought they all looked to be taken. She wondered where the maître d’ would fit them in.
“Did you say table for three just now?” she asked.
Edward looked over his shoulder, still holding her hand as he followed the maître d’. “What was that?”
“I said,” Mary began, raising her voice, but she trailed off. The place was too lively now they were amidst the hubbub, with conversation and laughter spilling from every closely bunched table. She couldn’t even see where she was going beyond Edward and the maître d’ as they moved in tight single-file between the tables. It wasn’t quite what she had in mind for their last evening in Paris.
“Votre table, Monsieur,” the maître d’ said, handing Edward one of the menus. He smiled at Mary - still partially blocking her view of the corner table he’d brought them to. “Mademoiselle,” he added as he offered her the other menu.
Mary wondered what Edward was so excited about. Then as he moved to one side and the maître d’ moved to the other, she saw him. There was Danny Danielson, wearing his Class A uniform and a bright-toothed smile, full of eagerness and a sense of occasion. She watched him run a hand over his short blonde hair as he stood up.
“Mary!” he said, like they were good old friends; like he imagined she had no idea what he’d done to her sister.
JT02 - To The Grave Page 27