by Kate Hewitt
And neither did Abby now—she averted her eyes from a box of high heels, another one of sheet music, a dusty tennis racket and a pair of skis—things she wasn’t ready to look at, and didn’t think she ever would be. Normally when she came up here, she grabbed whatever she was looking for and hurried downstairs again, keeping her head tucked low. She didn’t move among the shadows, courting ghosts.
Yet now she was, picking her way through the uneven stacks, breathing in dust and regret, trying to ignore both the cobwebs and the memories. At the very far end of the room, behind a tottering pile of plastic crates and tucked under the eaves, she finally found what she’d been looking for. An old trunk, banded with worn leather, just as she’d remembered, its lock rusted and broken. She didn’t know whether anything of interest to Simon would be inside, and she felt reluctant to open and disturb the memories within, whatever they were.
What was she really doing up here, anyway? What was the point?
Abby glanced around at all the boxes and bags, the trunks and crates, the memories packed up and tucked away, an inner life she tried never to access, and yet where had it left her?
I’m happy, she told herself, and then wondered why she’d had to say it.
She knelt in front of the trunk, running her hands over its ridged lid. Then she opened it—or tried to. It resisted at first, nothing budging, making her wonder if it actually was locked, even though she could see it wasn’t.
Another tug, having to mean it this time, and then, finally, with a protesting creak, the lid lifted.
A sheet of tissue paper had been lain across the top, and she removed it carefully, laying it to one side, so she could put it back later. Underneath, she found things she would have expected—her grandmother’s wedding dress, folded and yellowed with age; her father’s baby shoes, the leather now speckled and cracked. There was an album of photos she’d never seen before, most of them dating from the fifties, when Tom Reese had been getting Willow Orchards going. He stood with his wife Susan in front of a dozen skinny saplings.
There was nothing, as far as Abby could see, about the war, and she wasn’t even surprised. Why would her grandfather keep something from a time he hadn’t wanted to talk about?
She lifted up the wedding dress to see what was beneath—a pair of men’s dress shoes, a checkbook from a savings and loan company that must have closed its doors fifty years ago—and then felt her fingers close around something silky and yet hard, its edges cutting into her skin through the fabric that it was wrapped in.
Abby took it out carefully, her heart turning over even though she didn’t know what she held. It was small and oddly shaped, fitting in the palm of her hand. Slowly, she unwrapped the handkerchief—a square of slippery silk in dark navy—and then blinked down at the object revealed.
It was an ornate cross with an eagle overlaid, hanging from a blue ribbon bordered with red and white trim. A war medal—another one—different from the Purple Heart Sophie Mather had had. Why had her grandfather kept one while he’d given another away?
She turned it over, and then blinked again at what was inscribed there. For Distinguished Service, May 1945, Awarded to Master Sergeant Matthew Lawson, 82nd Airborne.
Who, Abby wondered, was Matthew Lawson, and why had her grandfather had his medal?
Chapter Eight
January 1944
Lily worked in an office that was little more than a broom cupboard, in a forgotten corner of the Old Admiralty on Horse Guards, not far away from the bombproof Citadel of command where the real decisions were being taken, orders being carried out, a sense of urgency tautening the very air.
The typing pool of the Casualties Section felt like another world entirely, another war. The section was staffed by three girls, overseen by the determined Miss Challis, all of whom typed letters to families whose sons or husbands had been killed or presumed missing in action. Day after day, hour after hour, Lily and her two colleagues typed the same words, the same sentiments, for one faceless soldier after another.
On a good day—if it could be called such a thing—she might type fifty or sixty letters. Miss Challis was emphatic that the letters be perfect, with no mistakes or smears of ink, the paper crisp, not crumpled.
“This letter will be kept,” she told the girls severely, more than once. “It might be read many times, by many different people. It would be a sign of grossest disrespect not to have it in the most excellent condition.”
While Lily agreed with her in theory, she did not think the letter informing a family of their loved one’s demise would necessarily be kept. She was not sure she would wish to keep such a thing.
She imagined a heartbroken mother tossing it despairingly into the fire, or a wife ripping it into a thousand tiny pieces. She pictured it splotched with tears, or crumpled up and then smoothed out, as someone scanned it yet again, futilely hoping for a different message this time, as if the words on the page might rearrange themselves, or perhaps they’d just missed out a crucial not. Not missing in action. Not killed. As if they sent letters to say such things.
She’d envisioned faceless strangers receiving the letters so many times, she felt as if an army of mourners lived in her head. Sometimes she thought she could hear their muffled weeping, a constant litany of sorrow, the backdrop to her workday, her whole life.
Miss Challis had warned them that writing such letters could make some girls “nervy”. She said it was important they kept their chins up, and held onto their courage. The way she said it, Lily thought it sounded as if they were on the front lines, battling Germans rather than offering up ghosts to the bereaved.
Yet she understood what her supervisor meant, because some days she felt as if she’d rather do anything, anything than type another letter, saying that someone was dead. Some days, when she saw the stack of notices and names piling up in the wooden tray on her desk, she felt like either screaming or putting her hands over her ears, to stop the sobbing she knew she only heard in her head.
She knew better than to say any of this to anyone. Clara, one of the girls she’d worked with, had been transferred to another department because she’d started to become weepy and anxious during work. Miss Challis had been briskly sympathetic, but afterwards she’d given Lily and the other girl Iris another one of her chin-up lectures, insisting that what they did for the war effort was just as important as the girls in the factory making fighter planes, or any of the other many jobs women found themselves doing now that it was wartime.
“Not quite as important,” Iris, a girl with a beaky nose and a constant sniff, had answered, rolling her eyes. She nodded towards the overfull tray on her own desk. “After all, the war is over for these poor blighters.”
It was an unsettling thought. For eight hours a day, as she sat at her desk and typed, a sliver of weak sunlight filtering through the room’s one small, high window, Lily felt as if the war was actually over.
Then she emerged, squinting like a mole, into the frantic rush of central London, men in uniform everywhere, hoardings plastered with posters commanding her to “Work to Win” and to “Stamp Out Black Markets” and she realized it wasn’t over at all. It was all around her, surging and seething.
Whenever Miss Challis wasn’t present, Iris complained about the monotonous drudgery of typing such depressing letters, but she did it with an acerbic wit that both troubled and amused Lily in turns.
Sometimes she’d read out the addresses on the letters and make all sorts of suppositions—“Nether Wallop, Hampshire—can you imagine living in such a place? I bet they thought they were going to give Hitler a beating. Too bad for this chap it didn’t turn out that way. He should have lived in Greater Wallop.”
Lily would smile, and then feel guilty for doing so, even though it could be such a relief to have a bit of fun, even if it was at the expense of the poor soldiers whose letters they typed.
“They’re dead, Lily,” Iris had said when she’d expressed this once. “They don’t care.”
“I know, but…”
Iris had rolled her eyes and sniffed—again—and Lily fell silent. Perhaps it didn’t matter as much as she feared it did.
Although she didn’t particularly enjoy her work, she’d heard of some jobs her friends from school had been conscripted for—shining men’s boots, or scrubbing latrines, or sweeping streets—and she counted herself fortunate, thanks to a strong set of O Levels and a reference from her head teacher about how diligent she was. Having to put up with Iris’ constant sniff was probably the worst thing about it, really.
Yet sometimes, in the midst of the drudgery of typing letters, Lily felt a flicker of longing. It was never to do something exciting as Sophie seemed to wish to, but rather simply to be where people were alive and life happened. The few minutes of idle chat with Iris and Mabel, the new girl, was the only conversation she had all day, and it was far from sparkling. Sometimes, as she ate her sandwich made from the National Loaf, with the thinnest scraping of margarine and a teaspoonful of potted meat, listening to Iris sniff, she wished she could talk and listen to someone who was alive, hear their opinions, maybe even laugh a little.
One evening, a little over a week since the night at The Berkeley, she headed up Whitehall, night having fallen hours ago, the city swathed in an impenetrable darkness that was alleviated neither by stars nor moon, as thick cloud covered the sky.
They’d had three air raids in the last week, nights spent in the cold and cramped Anderson shelter in the back of the muddy garden while the world around them buzzed and screamed and crackled; they’d emerged each time blinking in the gloom of the night, the sky still reddened like a wound, the air full of the acrid smell of burning. No one on their street had been hurt, but a house the next street over had had a direct hit, and a mother and baby had been killed in their beds.
“You would think, after all this time, they would know to go to the shelter,” Carol had said with a shake of her head, and then made a Woolton pie and taken it over to the woman’s sister, who now had care of the two older children, along with her own three.
Lily hurried up the road, her head tucked low, weaving in and out of the other pedestrians who were just as eager as her to get home. The night at The Berkeley, with its champagne and dancing and laughter, felt like a lifetime ago, or a dream, so different from the days in the office, evenings at home with a cup of tea and the wireless, and then the raids. Sometimes she felt as if it hadn’t happened at all, or if it had, it had only happened to Sophie.
Her sister had resented Tom Reese’s silence, had been offended and purposefully indifferent in turns, her moods as lightning quick as ever. As for Matthew Lawson… his silence didn’t surprise Lily at all.
By the time she made it back to Holmside Road, after enduring a twenty-minute wait to be pressed into the train car like a sardine wedged into its tiny tin, it was after six o’clock, and she was weary and footsore—her shoes were giving out and they didn’t have the clothing coupons to buy another pair—and a light, icy rain had started falling, drenching her in drizzle.
“Lily.” Carol greeted her at the door, her expression so animated, Lily felt an odd lurch of uncertain hope—what could possibly make her mother look so bright? What good news might have happened that she hadn’t heard about? “Come, look what Sergeant Lawson has brought.”
“Sergeant Lawson…” Lily unwrapped her scarf as she stepped into the sitting room, staring in surprise at the sight of Matthew Lawson standing by the fire, smart and serious in his uniform, his cap in his hands.
“Good day, Miss Mather. Or I suppose I should say good evening.”
“Good evening.” Lily’s head felt as if it were full of cotton wool. It would be rude to ask him what he was doing here, but what was he doing here? There hadn’t been a peep from either Matthew or Tom since the night at The Berkeley, something which had put Sophie decidedly out of sorts.
Lily had been subjected every night to her sister’s chameleon-like ruminations about Tom’s silence—one evening he simply must be too busy, another he’d gone off Sophie, and yet another she didn’t care anyway because he was a bit dull—“corn-fed farm boy, really. He didn’t even know what Big Ben was. Can you imagine?”
Lily had simply assumed the evening was a one-off, two American soldiers amusing themselves in the city, before they were called to duty, or, more likely, to someone else more suitable who caught their fancy. Lily had no illusions about her own allure, or even, for that matter, Sophie’s. They were two rather simple, middle-class girls, brought up strictly, without the worldly experience a thousand other London girls might have, no matter how Sophie liked to pretend and put on airs.
Yet here was Sergeant Lawson, and Lily couldn’t think what to say. “What have you brought, Sergeant Lawson?” she asked, and Carol nodded towards the kitchen.
“Come see.”
So Lily did, with Matthew following behind, as silent as ever. The table was full of food—more food than Lily could remember ever seeing during wartime. There were tins of pears and peaches and Spam, a net bag of oranges, and several bars of Hershey’s chocolate. And even more than that, as her incredulous gaze scanned the table—a whole tinned ham, a slab of bacon, a pat of butter. Lily’s mouth watered at the sight of it all.
“You didn’t have to—”
“I assured him he didn’t, of course,” Carol said quickly. “But he wanted to say thank you, for Sunday dinner.”
“I should have brought it before. I’m ashamed to say neither Lieutenant Reese nor I thought of it at the time.”
“But you thought of it now,” Carol said firmly. “And we are very appreciative, I assure you. We shall share with all the neighbors.”
Immediately, Lily saw the food disappearing; of course her mother would insist they share. She wouldn’t have it otherwise, but she had the absurd urge to gobble it up right then and there—she’d just spied a pot of strawberry jam amidst all the bounty.
“I was just telling Sergeant Lawson he must stay for a cup of tea,” Carol said. “I’ll put the kettle on—why don’t you take him to the front room, Lily?”
Lily murmured her assent as she shed her coat and walked slowly into the front room, surprised when her mother shut the door to the kitchen, giving them at least a semblance of privacy. Neither her father nor Sophie were home yet, although they would be soon.
“That was so very kind of you,” Lily said, wishing she had more words. “Really very kind.”
“It was no trouble.” Matthew’s lips twisted. “We’re swimming in the stuff, to tell you the truth. It almost feels…” He paused, a hard look coming over his face that Lily didn’t understand. “Wrong.”
“But at least you’re sharing it with us,” she said with a small smile. “Not everyone would.”
Matthew gave a brief nod. “Truly, I am glad to do it.”
“What have you been up to this last week?” Lily asked, trying to sound mildly flirtatious and feeling she failed. “Or should I not ask, because it’s all hush-hush?” She could not manage Sophie’s light, laughing tone at all. She sounded far too earnest.
“Just the usual. Drills and more drills. They want to keep us busy and not just kicking our heels. But we’ll be posted somewhere soon—things are a bit of a shambles right now, with so many divisions coming in at once, but I expect they’ll sort us out in the next week or so.”
“Are you bored, with the waiting? Or would you rather keep on waiting?”
Matthew cocked his head, considering her question.
“I don’t know which is worse,” Lily continued a bit breathlessly. “Waiting for the worst to happen, or when it really does.”
“Has the worst happened to you, Lily?” His voice was gentle, but she bit her lip guiltily anyway.
“No, it hasn’t, not yet, anyway.” She gave a little laugh, wanting to lighten the mood, to see him smile. “But it might, if my mother gives the strawberry jam away to someone on our street.”
Matthew laughed, a quick huff
of sound that delighted her because she knew instinctively how rare it was. “Now that would be a tragedy. But at least you’d still have the Spam.”
“I’ll tell you a secret,” Lily said, hardly able to believe she was teasing, even flirting. “I hate Spam.”
Matthew raised his eyebrows. “No!”
“Truly.”
“Should I take it back, then?” His eyes seemed to sparkle.
“No, Sophie likes it,” Lily said generously. “She can have it.”
Matthew laughed again and put his hands in his trouser pockets. Lily grinned, and he smiled back, and she didn’t think she’d ever felt so happy. And they’d been talking about Spam.
“I don’t think we’ll be here too much longer,” Matthew said after a moment, his voice serious once more. “All things considered.”
Lily bit her lip. “It’s really going to happen, then.”
Matthew nodded, understanding her meaning. “Yes, it will.” Briefly, the hard look came over Matthew’s face again. “But as to when, I have no idea. No one does. That is certainly hush-hush, and needs to be.”
“I don’t suppose it will be during winter, at any rate.”
“No.”
Carol bustled in with the tea tray, and Lily stepped away from Matthew, even though they hadn’t been standing very close. “Do you write to your family, Sergeant Lawson?” Carol asked as she set it down and began pouring. “They must be worried about you, so far away.”
“I write them,” Matthew answered briefly.
“And are they much reassured, that you are well looked after in our country?”
“I hope so.” There was something strangely bleak about his tone.
“Lily, why don’t you give Sergeant Lawson his tea?” With a rather officious manner, Carol handed the cup and saucer to her daughter, although she could have just as easily given it to their guest himself.