The Last Letter from Juliet

by Melanie Hudson

  I didn’t understand a word Marie said. Then I read the note.

  Dear, Juliet

  I’m writing in the hope that you are safe. It was a shock to see you in London at the Empire last evening. I became trapped with some of the bandsmen behind the stage area. Luckily the fire did not spread and we were rescued, but it took a couple of hours for the building to be secured enough to get us out.

  I looked for you afterwards amongst the injured but obviously didn’t find you. I’m hoping that you escaped unharmed, but until I know for sure, I will not rest. Seeing you was surreal. Only that morning I had read an article in The Times about women in the ATA. The article led with a (very glamorous) picture of you. You were stepping off the wing of a Spitfire with your hand running through your hair. You looked extremely happy. I couldn’t believe it was you at first, but then I could believe it completely, because flying Spitfires in the ATA is exactly what I should have realised you would do. I have done a little digging and traced you to the Hamble Ferry Pool – sorry if this is intrusive, but I need to know you’re safe. I am in Hampshire for a few days and was hoping we could meet one evening – this evening, perhaps? I will stay at the Bugle pub in Hamble until Friday and eat there each evening in the hope that you might join me.

  Yours, as ever.

  Edward.

  I stood motionless.

  ‘How did you get this?’ I asked.

  ‘A chap – a very good-looking chap, by the way – stopped me at the gate as I cycled in. He asked me if I knew Juliet Caron – Caron, you’ll note, not Lanyon – and handed me the note, which of course I read. I’m guessing by the tone that this Edward fellow is not your brother, more’s the pity.’

  ‘I don’t have a brother,’ I whispered, still looking at the note.

  Marie stopped joking around and shuffled me to the mess for a cup of tea. Anna had just landed and was walking in from the flight line. She was grabbed and told to meet us in the mess hall in five minutes – urgent conference required!

  ‘But you’re obviously going to meet him, whoever he is,’ Marie said, taking a slurp of weak tea and then looking into the cup with despair. ‘Jesus Christ, I hate this shit!’

  ‘I can’t. I’m delivering a Spit to Turnhouse this afternoon. It’s a priority one. I won’t be back until tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow, then?’ Marie pressed.

  ‘Marie!’ Anna chided. ‘Stop encouraging her. She can’t meet him, she’s married!’

  Marie sat back in her chair with a scoff. ‘Oh, poopdie-doo to that!’ She lit a cigarette, took a drag and handed it to me. I didn’t usually smoke, but today …

  I took a drag and rested the cigarette on an ashtray, folded the note and placed it in my pocket. There was only one way to deal with this.

  ‘Anna. I don’t suppose you would do me a very big favour, would you?’

  ‘Go on …’

  ‘Nip down to The Bugle tonight, find Edward and tell him I’m very sorry but can’t see him. And tell him …’ I thought for a moment. ‘Tell him that I’m safe – thank you for asking – but I’m married now and that I know he’s married, too, or better still, just tell him I’ve run away with the circus. The flying circus.’

  Marie sat up straight. ‘What!? You’re never gonna pass on dinner with a hot guy like that? Are you nuts?!’ She turned to Anna. ‘And he’s desperate to see her, I could tell. There goes a man very definitely in love. It’s in his eyes.’ She turned back to me. ‘Hell, it’s only dinner, Juliet …’

  I took the note out of my pocket and read it again.

  ‘It isn’t though, is it?’

  Marie sniffed while Anna just smiled, comfortingly.

  ‘Well,’ Marie began, standing up and stretching. She was always stretching – or exercising – it was her thing. ‘I’ll leave you two to it, then! I’m flying the Anson this afternoon.’ She leant in and whispered in my ear before she left. ‘Honey, make damn sure you’re certain before you let him go, because I’m not sure that phoney marriage of yours …’

  I scrunched my face in disapproval. Marie backed down and stopped whispering.

  ‘… look, we could all be dead tomorrow. I’m just saying, meet the guy and have dinner. We work hard, why not play hard, too?’

  She kissed me on the head and left.

  Anna smiled. It was a ‘that’s Marie for you?’ kind of a smile.

  ‘Do you still want me to go see him for you?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Absolutely I do, yes.’

  The flight to RAF Turnhouse was a turbulent one.

  Navigating to Scotland in a fighter aircraft with no instruments or radio to fall back on required a fresh and concentrated mind. I usually adored any trip in the Spitfire – sleek, powerful, edgy on the ground but an angel in the air – but today … today there was no joy to be found in the flight. I could only see Edward’s face … in every field, in every river and every town. The look he gave me across the Empire ballroom was a look of absolute surprise mixed with longing, confusion and disappointment.

  The one plus point was that the weather stayed fair for the journey and somehow, even though my mind had been elsewhere for the majority of the flight, I touched down safely at RAF Turnhouse with the satisfied knowledge that another vital delivery had been completed. I threw my parachute over my shoulder, grabbed my overnight bag and caught a lift into Edinburgh. If I was quick enough, I’d be in time to catch the sleeper to London and from London – if luck was on my side again – the Milk Train to Southampton, arriving back at Hamble the next morning, tired but pleased with the delivery and ready for another day’s work.

  Luck was with me. The following evening, I fell, exhausted and still thinking of Edward, into my cottage. Marie was out, which was a relief. With my resolve to keep away from Edward fading, I didn’t need any extra encouragement tonight.

  Anna was asleep on the sofa when I walked into the lounge and flopped onto a chair. She stirred.

  ‘Hello, you,’ she said, sitting up. ‘You must be dead on your feet. There’s some Carnation in the kitchen, just opened, if you fancy one of my special bedtime brews.’

  I closed my eyes. ‘Thanks, maybe in a moment.’

  Anna grabbed Marie’s cigarettes and a box of matches taken from the Bugle and lit a cigarette. Her daily smoking rate had gone up significantly since flying the Spitfire. She inhaled and sat back in her chair.

  ‘I delivered your message, by the way.’

  I kept my eyes closed.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And, nothing. I passed on your message and he said, ‘Thank you’ and I left. That’s it, more or less.’

  I opened my eyes and sat up.

  ‘Didn’t he ask where I was or … or anything about me at all.’

  Anna exhaled a long, slow breath and flicked ash into an ashtray.

  ‘He seemed upset – you know, disappointed – if that’s any help.’

  I closed my eyes again, sat back in the chair, took a deep breath and sighed.

  Anna sat forward and tapped me on the knee.

  ‘So?’

  She wanted details. Who wouldn’t?

  ‘So … what?’

  ‘So … what’s the story? This is the man you were shouting for at the Empire the other night, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. I saw him across the room at the Empire, briefly, just before the air raid warning went up.’

  I stretched and walked to the French windows that, on nicer days, were open. But today the weather had closed in just as I landed from my final flight, and as I watched the rain dance on the river, I couldn’t help but wonder if Edward had stayed on at the Bugle. If so, he was less than half a mile away. I glanced at my watch. Half past six.

  Anna rested her cigarette on the ashtray, joined me at the window and put an arm around my shoulder.

  ‘We’ve still got some gin stashed away in the kitchen. How about I make us a little snifter and you tell me all about it?’

  I shrugged. ‘Th
ere’s honestly nothing to tell.’

  Anna didn’t believe a word of it.

  ‘Oh, yes there is. You looked like death when you read his note yesterday. And your shoulders are tense as hell.’

  I allowed my shoulders to drop and smiled.

  ‘I’d love a glass of gin.’

  I told Anna the story of Christmas 1938 and how I fell in love with a man called Edward Nancarrow during the week before my marriage to Charles. When I finished the story, Anna didn’t say anything but went straight to the hallway and grabbed my best woollen coat.

  ‘Now, I know I’m going to sound like Marie,’ she said, ‘but I think you should brush your hair and put this on.’ She handed me the coat.

  I waited for an explanation.

  ‘He told me to tell you that he’ll be in the pub for two more days, that he’d wait for you – forever if necessary, should you change your mind.’

  I bit my lip.

  ‘Oh, Anna. You don’t know how I felt about him – still feel about him. I have to be faithful to Charles – to all of the Lanyons. They’ve done so much for me. You can’t know how much I owe them. It’s risky.’

  Anna shook her head.

  ‘You owe them nothing. And as for risky? Bullcrap, as Marie would say. What we do at work – that’s risky. This? This is just meeting up with an old friend. I’m not saying you should jump into bed with him, but dinner might be nice.’

  I allowed Anna to help me into my coat. She dashed into her bedroom to grab a hairbrush, face powder and Marie’s lipstick. I drew the line at the lipstick.

  ‘But I’ll regret it tomorrow,’ I whispered, walking to the door.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Anna took me firmly by the arms and stood in front of me. ‘Now then, Juliet Caron, just you listen to me. Marie might be a bit over the top sometimes, but she’s right about one thing. Which one of us knows if there will even be a tomorrow? Do yourself a favour and just go. It’s only to the bloody pub.’

  ‘Bloody?’ I laughed. ‘Next thing we know, you’ll be calling everyone a sonofabitch and then we won’t know if you’re Canadian, English or American!’

  Anna laughed. ‘Canadian, Polish, Czech, English, American … we all feel exactly the same to me.’

  I smiled, kissed Anna on the cheek, grabbed an umbrella from the rack and opened the door.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ I said. ‘Wait up for me!’

  And with my final words hanging in the air, I stepped outside, put up the umbrella. And turned towards the pub.

  Chapter 22

  Katherine

  The unlikely quest

  Having wheeled an excited Juliet out of Lanyon (past a scowling Yvonne, who believed our big day out to be utter madness) we soon settled into Fenella’s very old and very tiny car, ready for the big day out. Juliet looked like a model for Paris Vogue, wearing a pretty cashmere jumper – this time pastel pink – and a contrasting Chanel neck scarf. A little make-up highlighted her porcelain skin. I draped a blanket over her legs and my mind flashed to the photograph of her standing in front of the Tiger Moth. Even in flying overalls, with her hair blowing in the wind she had been a striking woman and still was.

  I put the car into gear and started down the road. Juliet asked me to head towards Land’s End but still didn’t explain why or what it was she wanted to do. I had been told to bring walking boots and a good coat as we were going on a little adventure down Memory Lane, and Memory Lane could get a bit muddy, apparently.

  ‘Did you have time to look for the compass again?’ she asked, placing her handbag in the footwell besides her feet.

  ‘I searched again first thing this morning.’ I took my left hand off the steering wheel to touch her shoulder. ‘I won’t give up. If it’s in the house, I’ll find it. I know I will.’

  She turned to stare out of the window, taking in the bare hedgerows and trees. ‘It’s Samuel’s inheritance, you see.’ She said softly.

  At Heamoor, we turned onto a country lane that led up to the moors. It was an eight mile stretch of winding road that linked the north coast with the south one, in this very narrow, final stretch of Cornwall. I was to drive through the small village of Madron and she would give me further directions after that. Classic FM played quietly in the background and I allowed Juliet to drift into her own world as I drove through the winter sunshine.

  Juliet stirred as the road ventured upwards, high above Penzance, onto open moorland. A derelict tin mine stood silhouetted on the horizon, adding a perfect dash of sinister to the sensational ambience of the place. In the far distance, a crag of towering rocks stood proudly, puncturing the skyline, adding a Neolithic permanence to the landscape. Ahead of us, easily one thousand feet below, beyond a patchwork of stony fields, lay a carpet of deep blue – the Atlantic Ocean. It was all so ancient, so wonderfully atmospheric, like nowhere else on earth (and also just a little bit unnerving, as if early-man wielding a flint axe might pop up at any second).

  Juliet’s smile was wide and bright as I pulled off the road and parked in a small lay-by. She wound down the window, took a very deep breath and sighed.

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ she asked, her watery eyes a picture of happiness.

  I continued to take in the landscape while Juliet took an ordinance survey map and reading glasses out of her handbag. It was cut into a small section and folded neatly. She tapped me on the knee.

  ‘Look at this. It shows you where you need to go.’

  Go?

  ‘It’s not far,’ she added, noticing my surprise, ‘and you don’t really need the map, it’s just for reference while I explain. You brought your walking boots like I said?’

  Fenella’s old things …

  I smiled, overly brightly. ‘Yes. Show me where to go. Have boots will travel.’

  ‘I used to come here, quite often, and there’s something I need you to get for me – to look for. There’s a couple of Bronze Age monuments down the lane here,’ she pointed to the map. ‘One is a circle of stones, like Stonehenge but smaller and without the horizontal capstones, and the other is, well, I’m not sure what it is – was – but it’s called Men an Tol and it’s basically a circular stone that sits on its side. If you crawl through the stone you can make a wish, so I used to come up here to get my head together and make wishes, and Sam did, too.’ Juliet took a cotton embroidered handkerchief out of her handbag and dabbed her eyes. She wasn’t crying, just, happy.

  ‘We’d bring picnics and make a day of it. Climb through the stone, head up Carn Galver – that’s the crags up there, see? – and then run down the hill to the sea. There’s a cove near Pendeen lighthouse that hardly anyone goes to, although, I suppose more people know about it now. The thing is, I used to bury things – offerings – near the stone (you can’t make a wish without offering something in exchange to the Gods) and I’m wondering if I’ve left the compass there, in my special place.’

  ‘Special place?’

  ‘When I sold Lanyon and money was tight, I created a few places scattered around the countryside that I used as my own special … I suppose you’d call them savings deposit boxes. I always liked to have a secret escape fund, you know, just in case … I couldn’t bear the thought of ever not having enough money to fly, so I used to hide a bit of cash away, in ammunition boxes buried in the ground. I always liked to have a plan B, if you know what I mean. Was that terribly bad of me, do you think?’

  A secret stash of cash?

  ‘Not at all. It sounds like a perfectly sensible plan to me. I wish I’d had a plan B on quite a few occasions in my life, I can tell you.’

  ‘The thing is, I’m pretty certain I have a ring put away in this one, and I’d really like to see it again. And there’s the compass, too. I always thought the compass was in the house, but now I’m not so sure, maybe I put it with the ring … my mind is so jumbled. Maybe I left it in one of my deposit boxes, and I just can’t remember?’

  ‘And when was the last time you went to this … box?’ I asked.
<
br />   Juliet took a deep breath and tried to think.

  ‘The early eighties?’

  Ah.

  ‘Well, it sounds like a fun quest. A ring and a compass – I can do that!’ I reached to the back seat for my coat and Fenella’s boots. ‘Show me exactly where you want me to go and I’ll totter off, but won’t you get cold sitting here alone while I’m gone? Shall I leave the engine running?’

  Juliet shook her head.

  ‘There’s a tearoom just down the road in Morvah. Shuffle me in there and I’ll be perfectly fine for an hour until you get back. I know the owner. It’ll be good to say goodbye.’

  Goodbye?Was that how it was to be one hundred years old? Was every hello a possible goodbye?

  Having waved au revoir to Juliet, I returned to park at the lay-by, donned my boots and followed a farm track sheltered by high Cornish hedges, until I came across the sign for Men an Tol. I climbed a stile and followed a well-worn path to three desolate stones – two uprights and a holed-out circular stone sitting on its side, between them.

  Juliet had said that I should stand next to the circular stone with my back to the relic of a tin mine which was away in the distance, look to my right – two o clock – and find a lone hawthorn tree, its branches shaped to follow the prevailing westerly wind, roughly a hundred yards away across the moor. Amazed that the tree still stood there alone, after all these years, I crossed at a ninety-degree angle to a stone hedge. In the pasture field directly behind the hedge was a flat stone, under the stone I would find a small green ammunition box. I followed the instructions to the letter and by some minor miracle, there the box was.

  Having been instructed not to open the box, I set off at a pace back to the car, but not so fast that I didn’t pause to touch the megalith. Juliet had said that there was a theory that the capstone had originally sat atop a burial mound, to act as a portal to the otherworld – a passage to find the final sleep. I imagined Juliet climbing through the hole in the stone to make a wish and burying an offering close by. I decided to make a wish of my own, but what could I offer to the Gods in return? I delved into my coat pocket and found a tissue, my phone and car keys. All I had to offer of my own that the Gods might be remotely interested in was a single band of gold, my wedding ring. No, I wouldn’t let that go, and I had nothing to wish for anyway – even the God’s can’t bring someone back from the dead. But as I picked up the ammunition box, I realised there was something I desperately wanted to wish for.