‘We’re friends,’ I told her. ‘Nothing else.’
She gazed at me, her eyes wide with innocence. ‘That’s not what everyone’s been saying.’
I felt a flush of anger. I hated gossip more than anything else. It was gossip that had made things so hard, before. ‘Well maybe don’t listen to tittle-tattle and we’ll all get on better,’ I snapped.
Rose winced. ‘Don’t worry, I know you’re only friends. Do you know how I know?’
I wanted to get up and walk away, but I also wanted to know what she’d heard. ‘How?’ I said.
‘I heard you,’ she trilled. ‘I heard you, Annie and Flora chatting in the lav.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘It was you in the cubicle,’ I said. ‘Then you know that there’s nothing between Will and me. You’re welcome to him.’ I knew I was over-simplifying my relationship with poor Will, but I just wanted Rose to go away.
Rose’s eyes filled with tears. ‘But it doesn’t work like that, does it?’ she said. ‘It’s always the same way. Girls like you come along and take the men from under our noses.’
I snorted. Where on earth had this come from? ‘I told you, there’s nothing between us.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Rose said, matter-of-factly. ‘Because whatever you think of him, he’s sweet on you all right. He’s all doe-eyed when you walk past, with your neat waist and your raven hair.’
I stared at her in utter surprise. ‘Rose,’ I said, trying not to laugh. ‘Are you blind? I’m wearing bloody overalls. I’ve got oil on my face. And my raven hair, as you put it, is covered in dust and tied up in a hanky. What is it you’re seeing here?’
Rose looked back at me, unblinking.
‘Rose,’ I said again, more gently this time. I was beginning to wonder if she was having some sort of funny turn. ‘I don’t want to be Will’s girlfriend. I just wanted to go out dancing and have some fun. If you want to make a move on Will, go right ahead.’
She gave me a tight smile. ‘It’s too late,’ she said. ‘You’ve got your claws into him now.’
Exasperated, I got up. ‘I’ve got work to do,’ I said. ‘You’re bonkers, Rose.’
I took my empty mug over to the counter and asked for another cup to take back to Gareth. Behind me, I could sense Rose’s eyes boring into my back but I ignored her.
As I walked away, holding Gareth’s mug carefully, I heard her call out. ‘It’s funny,’ she said in a singsong voice, ‘what you can learn from tittle-tattle.’
I slowed down but I didn’t stop walking. What did she mean?
‘People talked when you left, you know,’ she said.
This time I did stop. What was she trying to say?
‘There was nothing to talk about.’
‘Maybe so,’ she said. In one quick move, she got up from the table and headed out of the door at the other end of the mess hut. I stayed where I was, frozen to the spot. What was she trying to tell me? Did she know why I’d moved away from Kent? Surely not. No one knew. Did they? Mother had no idea, and Mr Mayhew wouldn’t talk.
Even if Rose had somehow found out … I stifled a gasp. Even if she had found out, she couldn’t be sure. We’d been so careful.
I shook my head. No. It was almost five years since I’d left home. She couldn’t possibly know anything. Too much time had passed. And the war meant lots of people coming and going in the villages. Rose was just being, well, Rose. She obviously had an enormous crush on Will and she wanted me to step aside. Well, I’d happily do that if it meant she left me alone.
My mind whirling, I pushed open the door that led to the airfield and walked back to the bomber where Gareth was waiting.
‘Tea’s up,’ I said, handing him the mug. He took it and gulped it down.
‘You’ve got an admirer,’ he said.
My heart sank. ‘What have you heard?’ I was shorter than I’d intended to be.
‘That Will was looking for you.’ Gareth grinned at me.
‘We’re just friends,’ I muttered. ‘I don’t … I’m not really in the market for an admirer.’
Gareth was looking at me oddly. ‘Are you all right, Lil?’ he said. ‘You’ve gone a bit pale.’
‘I think I might be coming down with something,’ I said.
‘You go home and have a lie-down,’ he said, his face furrowed with concern. ‘I’ll tell Annie to come and see you’re all right when she gets her break, shall I?’
I forced myself to smile. ‘Thanks, Gareth,’ I said.
Without looking back, I left the airfield and headed back to our digs, quiet in the middle of the day with no one around. I stripped off my overalls and climbed into my narrow bed, pulling the blankets over my head. I’d thought I’d be fine here. Safely away from whispers and nosy neighbours, but I’d been wrong. Just one evening dancing with Will and all my demons were crowding in on me again. I’d pulled away from him on the walk home from the dance because I was terrified he would try to kiss me and I didn’t know how I’d react; no one had kissed me since Ian. I’d thought I was healing, but perhaps I wasn’t. Perhaps I never would.
And now Rose was sniffing round too. And if she’d overheard our conversation about Will, then she’d have heard us mention Newcastle. What if she put two and two together and worked out what Flora, Annie and I were doing. The whole thing could come tumbling down around us – and goodness knows what would happen to the women we were trying to help. And to us. Would we be court-martialled? Sent to prison? Shot, even? I didn’t know. Shaking like a leaf, I buried my head into the pillow so my sobs didn’t echo round the room, and I cried and cried.
Chapter 16
Helena
May 2018
I could hardly believe I was throwing caution to the wind, rearranging plans, and going to have lunch with Jack without planning the meeting to within an inch of its life.
Generally speaking, I was what I believe people call tightly wound.
‘You’re clenching,’ Miranda said to me on an almost daily basis. And I usually was. I liked to be in control of my world, and my flat, and my desk at work. I was no psychologist but I understood that this was down to our chaotic childhood. Whereas Immy and Andy had embraced the unpredictable nature of our upbringing, Miranda and I were more, well, clenched, about the whole thing. Miranda ran her home and the bank she worked for with similar military precision – just as she’d taken over running the family home when we were kids. I didn’t so much as buy a new tube of foundation without researching it to death first. I had a system for everything. And I never did anything spontaneously. Yet, here I was, racing through the streets of the West End to meet Jack, wearing Elly’s bright red lipstick.
‘You can’t go on a date without lipstick,’ Elly had said.
‘It’s not a date,’ I’d replied. ‘It’s a lunch meeting. A business lunch meeting.’
She’d raised one eyebrow at me and I’d ignored her.
Jack was waiting for me outside the bar. I saw him before he saw me, so I could take a minute to admire his broad shoulders and the curls that fell across his forehead. He was reading a book – an actual book – which made my heart sing, though I frowned to see he’d folded the pages right back on each other. Didn’t he care he was breaking the spine?
As I got closer, he looked up and smiled and I felt my legs wobble in what was becoming a familiar fashion. He had such an effect on me; it was crazy. And terrifying.
‘Business meeting, Nell,’ I told myself inwardly. ‘Stay calm. Stay professional.’
‘You look amazing,’ Jack said, kissing me on the cheek and stuffing the book into his pocket at the same time.
‘Professional,’ I said.
Jack looked at me in surprise.
‘I was trying to look professional,’ I blustered. To hide my embarrassment, I reached into his pocket and pulled the book out. It was a battered copy of an Agatha Christie mystery. I straightened out the pages and smoothed the cover.
‘Bag?’ I said.
Jack held out hi
s backpack and I carefully put the book inside.
‘Sorry, Miss,’ he said.
Laughing at his contrite expression I followed him inside.
We ordered a bottle of red wine, even though I never did lunchtime drinking.
‘They do great tapas here,’ Jack said. ‘Let’s chat first, then we can order?’
I nodded, feeling slightly wrong-footed. This wasn’t a date. Was it?
‘So, fill me in,’ Jack said, pulling a notebook out of his bag. ‘What do you need me to do?’
Ah, no. Not a date. I was both relieved and disappointed.
‘I don’t really need you to do anything,’ I said. ‘I just need to know you wouldn’t mind if I pretended to be researching your family, log all my searches under your file, while I was researching my own.’
‘You don’t need me to look anything up?’ Jack looked disappointed and I laughed.
‘It’s my job,’ I pointed out. ‘They make it look like you’re doing the research on camera, but it’s all already done.’
‘I was looking forward to it,’ Jack said. He looked so glum, I laughed again.
‘You can help if you like,’ I said. ‘It’s always good to have another pair of hands.’
‘Great.’ Jack grinned at me and again I felt that tingle in my stomach. He had so much charisma. ‘I’m looking forward to hearing more about Frank, too.’
‘He was a bit of a performer apparently,’ I told him.
Jack looked at me, astonished. ‘You spoke to your aunt?’
‘I did.’
‘And she remembers my grandfather?’
I nodded. ‘She said he was a mimic. Kept everyone amused with impressions of the officers.’
‘Ha!’ Jack said, delighted. ‘So perhaps I’m not the only actor in the family after all.’
‘Perhaps not,’ I said, pleased to have pleased him.
‘What else did she say?’ Jack said. He brandished his pen as if he was about to write down every word I said.
‘She said nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
I filled him in on Lil’s reluctance to talk, and Dad’s desperation to know more.
‘I feel like I’m in a very awkward position,’ I said. ‘But Elly convinced me to do what Dad wants. She reckons Lil can’t have done anything that bad, and I don’t need to tell her that I’m researching her.’
Jack made a face. ‘Tricky,’ he said. ‘On the one hand, I totally understand your dad wanting to know more about his family. On the other, Lil sounds so special to you …’
‘I don’t want to upset her,’ I said.
There was a pause.
‘Do you know what we should do?’ Jack said suddenly.
‘What?’
‘Eat. We can’t think on an empty stomach.’
So we ordered a whole bunch of tapas and wolfed them down almost as fast as the waiter brought them to our table.
I felt so comfortable with him; I could almost feel myself unclenching as we chatted over tapas. He was funny and clever, and unashamedly fond of reality TV and football.
‘Tell me about your family,’ I said, chasing a garlic mushroom round my plate with a piece of bread. ‘You said it was just you and your mum?’
Jack’s eyes softened. ‘Just us,’ he said. ‘Like how it’s just you and Dora.’
I smiled again at him remembering my daughter’s name.
‘She’s a writer, my mum,’ he carried on.
‘Yes, I remember you saying. What does she write?’
He smiled. ‘TV shows. Soaps, mainly.’
‘Ahhh,’ I said. ‘In the business.’
He took a sip of wine. ‘She had me quite young,’ he said. ‘She was just starting out in the industry and she was grafting, you know? Putting in the hours. So when she had me, she just took me with her.’
‘To the TV studios?’
He nodded. ‘I spent a lot of time in writers’ meetings, and story-lining conferences, and in dressing rooms,’ he said, smiling. ‘I loved it. I used to hang out on sets with the actors – it’s what made me want to be part of it all.’
‘Sounds unconventional,’ I said.
Jack nodded. ‘It sounds it, but I’m not sure it was. I was in the studios a lot when I was tiny, but by the time I was at school, Mum’s career was more established and she could work from home a lot. She was so strict about me doing my homework, and going to bed on time. I never missed class, or anything like that.’
I looked down at my plate. It was silly – I’d sort of hoped Jack’s mum had been more like my own, but actually she sounded more like the mum I’d always wanted. The mum I was trying to be.
‘Mum knew having me young could have been the biggest mistake of her life,’ Jack went on. ‘But she was determined it wasn’t going to stop her living her dreams. And she wanted me to have choices too.’
‘She sounds amazing,’ I said truthfully but not without a certain amount of envy.
‘I owe her a lot.’
My stomach twisted slightly, as I thought about how much Miranda and I owed Lil. I said as much to Jack.
‘Tell me more about what she did for you?’ he said. ‘When your mum was ill.’
I shrugged. ‘She was there when we needed her,’ I said.
I took a breath and picked up my glass of wine.
‘Mum had days when she wouldn’t be able to get up,’ I said. ‘She’d be okay and then there’d be periods when she was struggling. Some of the time she’d shut herself in her study, and when things were really bad, she’d stay in bed.’
Jack’s eyes were fixed on my face. I tried to smile.
‘It wasn’t her fault,’ I said, my voice wobbling a bit. ‘Like I said, she was a brilliant mum before then. And since then. She just had that bad patch, and it made things tricky for a while.’
‘How long?’
‘A couple of years,’ I said, looking into my wine. ‘Five, perhaps. At the most.’
‘That’s quite a long time,’ Jack said gently. ‘Especially for kids.’
I nodded. ‘Dad tried so hard,’ I said. ‘But there were a lot of us, and he was trying to keep his career going, plus he’s rubbish with money.’
‘Lil helped?’
I smiled at the memory. ‘Miranda phoned her. She was only twelve, but she just took control. Mum was in a very dark patch – the worst, I think, it had ever been. Immy was about two, and Andy would have been six. Dad had just got his first big film job, so he was trying really hard to keep on top of things but it was all a bit messy.’
‘Go on.’
‘Lil didn’t like staying in one place for long,’ I explained. ‘She was almost seventy then, but she was still travelling. She was doing a lot of cruises by then. She liked being out on the ocean, she said. When Miranda phoned her, she’d just finished a cruise and she was supposed to be heading off again. But instead, she came to stay.’
I remembered Lil turning up one morning, her suitcase covered in stickers from the countries she’d visited – did you still get those? I wondered – and dark circles under her eyes. She’d kissed us all, and then gone upstairs to see Mum, who was in bed. A little while later she came down again, nodded at me and Miranda, and went outside to Dad’s studio, which was at the bottom of the garden. Miranda and I sat quietly in the kitchen, waiting for her to reappear. And when she did, she looked more than a little bit cross.
‘I’ve had a word with your father,’ she’d said. ‘And I’m going to stay here for a while. Immy will have to share Andy’s bedroom.’
I’d felt such relief I wanted to cry. Instead I just grinned at Miranda, who smiled up at Lil.
‘Andy won’t like that,’ she said. ‘Immy farts in her sleep.’
And that was that. Lil moved in and like some 1990s version of Mary Poppins, she slowly changed our lives.
‘Lil knows everyone,’ I told Jack now. ‘She’s met so many people over the years and everyone adores her. She called in a lot of favours for us, I think. Dad couldn�
�t persuade Mum to get help, but Lil just invited an old friend round – and that friend happened to be a doctor, and then there was another friend who was a counsellor … She was sneaky but it worked.’
Jack topped up our wine glasses. ‘She sounds brilliant,’ he said. ‘What else did she do?’
‘Taught us to cook,’ I said. ‘And when she realised Miranda was good with numbers, she helped her get to grips with the family finances. My parents were making money but they weren’t spending it wisely. Miranda took over – she still looks after their cash for them, even now.’
Jack chuckled. ‘I could do with Miranda organising my bank account,’ he said.
‘Don’t ever say that when she’s in earshot,’ I warned. ‘Because she’ll actually do it. She phones me every April to remind me to open a new ISA.’
‘And do you?’
I scoffed. ‘No,’ I said. ‘But please don’t tell Miranda that.’
‘What else?’ Jack said.
‘Silly things,’ I said. ‘Tiny things that don’t seem important but actually made such a difference. She bought a big calendar for the wall and made us all write things on it, and she reminded Dad about parents’ evenings, and sports days, and even birthdays. She got a cleaner, so the house wasn’t dirty any more, and invited our friends round for tea. She forced Dad to eat dinner with us, instead of working through meals, so we got to spend more time with him.’
I paused.
‘It was Mum that she helped the most, though.’
‘Are they close?’ Jack asked.
I made a face. ‘They have a bit of an odd relationship,’ I said. ‘It’s almost like Mum is embarrassed about what happened, which is crazy but I suppose understandable. She never talks about it and she sort of rolls her eyes at any mention of Lil, but she’s very protective of her. Massively so. She was the one who found the home for her, and she’s the one who makes sure she has everything she needs. She visits all the time, too.’
Jack nodded. ‘That’s sweet,’ he said. ‘I’d like to meet her.’
‘Mum?’
He laughed. ‘Lil, you doofus.’
Then his expression changed slightly.
‘But I’d like to meet your mum, too.’
The Hidden Women Page 9