At Long Last Love

by Milly Adams

Pierre shrugged. ‘My grandmother is her own person. I hope perhaps another time.’

  ‘And Derek?’

  ‘An agent was dropped elsewhere. He relayed the news that Derek has been officially notified as dead. I’m so sorry, my dear.’

  She waited with these men, whose story sounded right, but … but … Words were easy, her thoughts were muddled, and until she was in the air she would not believe a word of it.

  Inside the fuselage of the Lysander the smell was that of the Whitley, oily and tinny. The moonlight was shut out, and the aircraft began to move. Bernard sat with his arm around Sarah, holding her as it accelerated along the bumpy landing strip. There was still time for them to be stopped, still time to be shot out of the sky, but somehow, it didn’t matter, because she had been wrong; she could indeed afford to trust, but that certainty came and went, and there were shapes that loomed, moved and then danced away.

  She gradually became used to the darkness and exchanged salutes with the blown wireless operator, who was real, and lucky to have survived, just as she was. Next to him Pierre grinned that grin of his, but looked thin, strained and years older than a few months warranted. They all did, but that was the way of it, and they still had to reach England. As they gained height she wished those who had been brought in the Lysander to replace them all the luck in the world. Dear God, they would need it.

  They flew on, and drank the water the despatchers brought them. She poured some of the water over her fingertips and eased off her wool gloves, which had stuck to the raw, throbbing, nail-less digits. And she slept in Bernard’s arms.

  The ack-ack woke her as they left France’s shores and headed across the Channel. The despatchers moved about, and one brought Sarah coffee in a tin cup. It was real coffee. She took it from him, and in the dim light the RAF despatcher saw her fingers. His face set, but he said nothing. But a moment later he returned with a biscuit. He said, ‘My mother bakes them and sends them to me. It is her whole sugar ration. She would be pleased if you accepted it.’ Sarah shook her head, but the man murmured, ‘Take it. It is all I can do for you.’

  She took it. ‘Please thank your mother, but you know, young man, you are taking me home, so you are doing a great deal for me.’ He was probably her age, but she felt very old.

  He nodded and returned to his post. She ate the biscuit, still feeling sick, but so grateful that she could have wept at his kindness, for what could she do for them, these brave young pilots and despatchers who died too often, and too young, transporting people like her?

  She was barely aware that they had landed, because she couldn’t wake up properly. She found the strength, however, to say that Lizzy must not see her until she looked better. ‘But tell them both that I am safe and will be home soon. But wait. Wait.’ She looked around for the despatcher. ‘Thank you, I will never forget any of you. And thank the pilots. I owe you all my life.’

  The despatcher nodded. ‘I will. Don’t you worry about a thing now.’

  She was handed down from the plane into Bernard’s arms. He carried her to the ambulance. The moment they reached the hospital, the darkness that had been growing cocooned her in silence, and then there was nothing.

  She woke into the brightness of a quiet room. A nurse in a grey dress, white apron, white cuffs and white muslin veil said, ‘It’s Christmas Day – you are safe, you are almost home.’

  ‘They must not see me until I am better.’

  ‘I know, we have been told; and your dependants have received notification. You are in a military hospital, and we are like soldiers and are likely to shout, extremely loudly, if you misbehave.’ The QA’s voice was stern, but she smiled.

  An elderly doctor came, his white coat gleaming, his stethoscope round his neck. Sarah turned from him and looked out at the grey sky – so much grey. She tried not to cough.

  He said, ‘A Merry Christmas to you.’

  ‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous,’ she snapped.

  The nurse laughed and, after a moment, so too did the doctor.

  Bernard said, from the corner, ‘This young woman never used to swear. How things change.’

  She peered towards the voice. ‘You’re here.’

  The doctor said, ‘He’s a bloody fixture, if I may join you in your adjectival adventure.’

  The nurse agreed, ‘We disinfect him, as well as the floor. One day he will leave.’

  Bernard sat up. His coat was over his knees. ‘Out into good old England I will now go. Grey, as per usual, damp and bloody cold.’

  ‘Oh my,’ the doctor said, listening to Sarah’s chest. ‘Yet more adjectives pertaining to the Anglo-Saxon, if my ears deceive me not. So out you go, young man, just for a moment. I need to listen to the orchestra that is playing into my stethoscope.’

  Bernard came to Sarah, who was propped up on pillows. ‘I will be back. I will always be back.’

  She snatched at his hand, then let go; her fingers hurt too much. ‘Don’t go, not yet.’

  ‘I must. I have to see someone, but I will be back before I go anywhere, if I go anywhere.’ He bent, kissed her lips. Into her hair he said, ‘I love you more than life itself, so, I repeat, I will be back.’

  Derek had said he would be back too.

  She watched as Bernard left. He’d be off to be debriefed, and then what? Surely he was finished in France. Please, please, he must be. She sighed. Soon someone would come to debrief her too.

  The doctor took her pulse. ‘We had to open you up to have a bit of a butcher’s inside. There were a few concerns about your spleen. Some little toerag had whacked you pretty hard. It’s swollen, but not irreparably damaged. Rest, rest and more rest. Your chest is already showing signs of improvement, but that will also need rest.’ He pointed at her fingers. ‘The nails will grow back, and so too those on your toes. Let’s say that in anything from six months to a year you will be tickety-boo. But for now …’ He raised his hand as though he was conducting.

  She said, like a good girl, ‘Rest.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Kate had received the letter on Christmas Eve and put it beneath the tree, for Lizzy in the morning. There were a few other presents, including chocolates from Mr Oliver, who had offered her a contract at any time of her choosing. He said he would have taken the whole cast and caboodle, if he could, for nothing had quite touched his heartstrings as that evening had.

  Tim Oliver, the GI, had grinned as Kate touched his father for a donation to the War Bond fund before they went on their way. He had given her twenty pounds, but she kept out her hand.

  ‘More?’ Mr Oliver drawled.

  She nodded. ‘The church clock is stuck, not at ten to three – and neither is there honey still for tea – but it has been broken for too long.’

  The Americans had looked blank, but not Mrs B, who recited the last verse of Rupert Brooke’s poem, ‘The Old Vicarage, Grantchester’, ending:

  … is there Beauty yet to find?

  And Certainty? and Quiet kind?

  Deep meadows yet, for to forget

  The lies, and truths, and pain? … oh! yet

  Stands the Church clock at ten to three?

  And is there honey still for tea?

  The two Americans, and even Brucie, had listened to Mrs B’s quiet voice. Mr Oliver swallowed and handed over another twenty pounds. Brucie drove them to Exeter, where Mr Oliver knew someone who would fly them back to London. His final words were, ‘Any time you want to tread the boards again, on a bigger stage, call me, Kate Watson.’

  On Christmas Day morning, the sitting-room door stayed shut until Lizzy had eaten a soft-boiled egg and toast, unburnt, which Kate said was Lizzy’s main Christmas present from her.

  Lizzy laughed, but then saw Kate was serious, and slumped back in her chair, her arms crossed.

  Kate couldn’t keep up the pretence. ‘However, Father Christmas will have brought just a few things.’ Lizzy pushed back her chair. Kate stopped her. ‘No, not so fast. Dishes first.’ They washed and dried them in
the quickest time possible.

  Once in the sitting room, Kate gestured to the Christmas tree hung with decorations, some of which Kate had made with her mother and Sarah. ‘There’s a little pile there. Why not start with the letter?’

  Lizzy flung herself onto her knees and fingered the envelope. ‘It’s open.’

  ‘That’s because it’s addressed to me, but it contains something that very much concerns you: read it and see.’

  Kate sat cross-legged on the floor, watching as Lizzy pulled out the typed letter. Her lips moved as she read it, and then she started at the beginning again. ‘We will meet again, Aunt Kate. You told the truth.’ She threw herself at Kate. ‘She’s coming home, Mummy is coming home.’

  Kate rocked her backwards and forwards, cradling her. ‘Yes, your mum is coming home, when she’s better – and not before. But we know she’s safe, and that’s all that’s important.’ Yes, that was all that was important, because Sarah was Lizzy’s mother, though Kate wished with all her heart that it was not so, and that she could tell her child who her mother really was. But that would never happen.

  They stayed quiet for a while, but then the wrapped presents called out to Lizzy. She was allowed two chocolates before morning service, but then they had to run to the church or be late. Kate handed out hymn and prayer books, as a vicar’s fiancée should. What was so surprising was that she enjoyed the fun and the gravity of her role, the sense of being important to the village, of responding to the villagers’ needs and being part of a team.

  She grinned across the church to Mrs B, and to Lizzy in the choir stalls. Together with Tom and Stella, they had dressed the tree that stood in the corner of the church. And soon Sarah would return, and resume her role of mother. It was enough that Kate would then be secure in her position of aunt.

  Tom came from the vestry and announced, ‘Merry Christmas to one and all, and we start with hymn number fifty-nine: “O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant”.’

  Kate sang to Lizzy, to Mrs B, to Sarah and to Tom. Perhaps it would be to God one day. He was definitely a bit closer than he had been for a long time.

  At the end of February 1943, when the cold was deep and bitter and the British had begun to push back the Japanese in Burma, the Germans had surrendered at Stalingrad and the allies had taken Tripoli from the Axis, Sarah returned to the village in her FANY uniform. She was brought by open army jeep, which was freezing, but that didn’t matter because she had been cold before, though now she wasn’t lonely, hurt or frightened. Now she was coming home, with Bernard.

  They drew up to Melbury Cottage, but before she was able to clamber from the jeep, Sarah saw Lizzy running down the path, then jumping up and down, as Sarah eased herself to the ground, opening her arms. Lizzy threw herself into them. ‘You’re back. You must have served millions of cups of tea, and driven thousands of lorries.’

  Sarah hugged her child, so tightly that Lizzy wriggled.

  ‘I can’t breathe, but you’re back, and that’s all that matters.’ She slid from Sarah’s arms and looked behind her at Bernard. ‘Oh, dear me, I think you two are going to be soppy, like Aunt Kate and Tom.’ She reached out a hand.

  Bernard shook it. ‘Good morning. I’m going to marry your mother, if you will both have me.’

  Lizzy shrugged. ‘Well, there’s room, I suppose. Do you dance?’

  Bernard looked taken aback. ‘Well, not really.’

  Lizzy beckoned them towards the house. ‘Don’t worry, Aunt Kate will teach you, and you too, Mum.’

  She slipped her hand into Sarah’s. ‘I expect Daddy is looking down and is glad we will have a man about the house. That’s what he liked to call himself, isn’t it?’

  Kate watched from the doorstep, holding the door open. Her sister looked strained and exhausted, but there was a light in her eyes that Kate hadn’t noticed, ever.

  Sarah smiled at her, reached out a gloved hand and touched Kate’s cheek as she entered the hall. ‘Dearest Katie.’

  Kate took Sarah’s coat from her and hung it on the hook.

  Bernard shook his head when she reached for his. ‘I can’t stop – places to be, people to see.’ His mac was open, and he wore a uniform of what looked like a Guards regiment. ‘I just wanted to see Sarah safely home.’

  Lizzy was dragging Sarah into the sitting room. ‘Come on, Mum. Aunt Kate lit the fire and she has the kettle on, and Mrs B got some of the ladies to donate sugar, so there are two small cakes, but only two. One for you, and one for me, if Bernard really isn’t staying.’

  Bernard laughed and began to head for the sitting room too, but Kate barred his way. ‘So?’

  He dug his hands into his pockets. ‘I can’t tell you much, but she’s home for good.’

  ‘No more gallivanting then, to pastures further away than a canteen on a railway station, or the cab of a lorry?’ Bernard said nothing, but she liked his steady stare, one that she felt invited the real question: ‘Is she in one piece, mentally and physically?’

  There was a world of love in his smile. ‘She will be, but she still has dreams, and a touch of paranoia; but that goes with the territory and is hard to leave behind. Who is the enemy, who isn’t? It should improve. I can say no more.’

  Lizzy slammed the sitting-room door shut. Kate said, ‘When you say dreams, you mean nightmares.’

  It wasn’t a question.

  ‘Nightmares,’ he confirmed. ‘Perhaps you could stress that she is now safe, that whatever happened will eventually be in the past, but I’m not sure if you can understand what I mean.’

  Kate stood firmly in front of him. ‘I understand very well, and I’m telling you now that Sarah will not enter your world again or, if so, it will be over my dead body. There is a child to consider, and she has done her bit. Do you understand, Bernard – or whoever you really are.’

  ‘Sarah wouldn’t be allowed. And yes, I understand.’

  He walked from her to the door of the sitting room and knocked. Kate was hot on his heels as he entered. He stood in front of Sarah and said gently, ‘I have to go.’

  Sarah nodded, standing in front of the fire. Bernard held her. She laid her head on his shoulder as he kissed her hair. He turned and as he left the room he called to Lizzy, ‘I will be back; remind your mother of that.’

  Lizzy said, ‘My daddy said that.’

  Kate followed him into the hall. The jeep hooted, but she dragged at his sleeve. ‘You’d better come back.’

  ‘I fully intend to, but look after her for me. You’ve done a splendid job with Lizzy.’

  Kate smiled at him. ‘Flattery is always nice,’ she said. ‘However, it’s easy to do a splendid job with Lizzy. I, however, have a bark and a bite, where the family is concerned, so just you remember, when you come back again.’

  The front door closed behind him. Kate made tea, and carried in the tray. The cakes were on a plate. She set the tray down on the small table next to Sarah’s chair. ‘It’s so good to have you home, Sarah.’

  Sarah was comfortable in the easy chair – her chair – to the left of the fireplace. She smiled at Kate. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for everything, especially when I didn’t believe you, but I have learned the difference now.’

  ‘Difference?’ Lizzy asked, while Kate poured. She had saved her ration of tea leaves over the last month or two, determined that her sister should have as many decent cups of tea as she needed.

  Sarah still wore her gloves, and hesitated to take the cup and saucer that her sister offered, so instead Kate placed the cup on the table.

  Lizzy repeated, ‘What difference?’

  Sarah said, ‘Between what one thinks and what really happens, Lizzy.’ She looked hard at Kate. ‘I’m sorry, Katie.’

  ‘It’s over; the past is dead, just as it will be for you too, Sarah.’ The two sisters sat quietly for a moment, just looking at one another.

  Lizzy said, ‘You can take your gloves off, Mum. It’s warm in here.’

  Sarah flushed. �
�Well, you see, I stubbed all my fingers on a door – how silly was that – and, hey presto, off came my nails.’

  ‘We don’t mind that, do we, Aunt Kate? I can tell my friends at school. Billy’s dad came home from the army with only one leg. The stump is horrid.’

  ‘Oh, well, this is nothing then.’

  ‘You’re home, so take them off. You need to be comfortable.’

  Sarah shook her head as her daughter pulled the fingers of her gloves, one by one, then yanked both gloves off at once.

  ‘Ugh,’ Lizzy said. ‘That’s revolting. Wait until I tell Billy.’

  Kate stared at fingers that had been nowhere near a door. What could she say to her sister, who was not allowed to discuss her past? So she merely said, ‘Try the cakes. I forgot the napkins. Just a moment.’

  She left the room and rooted about in the cutlery drawer, where she knew there were none, but the clatter hid any noise she might make as she cried. War was such a ghastly bloody business, but damn it, sometimes it had to be fought.

  And this is what Sarah said to her as well, when Kate responded to her cries in the night.

  ‘I regret none of it. Not my feet, my hands, any of it. It has to be fought, you see, Kate: to keep our children safe from these people. You have no idea what they are doing, how they are behaving, the races they are targeting. Billy’s dad, Derek, you, Tom have all given so much. And no, I don’t regret it.’

  Kate held her until she slept.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Churchill broadcast to the nation at three in the afternoon on 8th May 1945, declaring that the war in Europe was at an end. It seemed such a small speech for an end to such a terrible time, one that had witnessed sustained courage, endurance and suffering beyond belief. Tom said this was why the bells should ring out in Little Worthy. The bellringers were a little rusty, after such a long lay-off, and the cacophony woke Kate’s daughter, Amelia Lavender, named after someone Sarah had known rather well in the war, and Pierre’s grandmother – or so Sarah had referred to her.

  Kate pushed Lizzy’s old pram backwards and forwards as she and her husband, the Reverend Tom Rees, stood with the congregation who had collected on the green to listen to the broadcast. Bernard had arrived, battered and bruised in late 1943, with an escape story he would never be able to tell. Tom had married Sarah and Andrew – which, it transpired, was Bernard’s real name – in early 1944. Lizzy was the bridesmaid, wearing a dress produced by Mrs Woolton. It looked suspiciously like Cinderella’s ballgown, made from parachute silk for the 1943 village pantomime, directed by Kate.