The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach

by Pam Jenoff

  I straightened, taking in the wide swath of sandy beach rising to German combat positions, now abandoned. This landing spot had weeks earlier been a battlefield. The bodies had thankfully been removed but equipment, broken weapons and abandoned packs were still strewn like driftwood across the beach. A smell, burning and something more, hung in the air. “Off quickly,” a sailor ordered. “Stay together.” There were open trucks waiting for us, but as the others boarded, I hesitated. Going with them would take me far away from where I needed to go. If I got on the truck, I would never reach the children.

  Desperately, I scanned the beach. It was wide-open and there was no way for me to walk away without someone seeing. But there was a dune about fifteen feet away, no bigger than the one Robbie had fallen from when we were children. I started toward it.

  “You!” the sailor called after me. I turned back. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Still not wanting to speak I made a gesture indicating I needed to relieve myself, then pointed toward the dune. “Be quick about it,” he said. I hurried over and ducked behind the dune. Should I wait until the truck pulled away? But the guard would surely remember I was there. Crouching low, I began to move away from the trucks, in the direction where the rumbling grew louder. Twenty feet ahead stood what had once been a building of some sort, flattened by shelling days earlier. Beyond lay a road, my only chance. I ran toward it as quickly as I could.

  “Stop!” The sailor’s voice came, louder and angry. But I was far from him now and close to the brush. I kept running, heedless in the direction of the trees. “You can’t...”

  There was a sudden explosion, deafening boom and white light. And then I knew no more.

  I was in the water, deep this time, head completely submerged. I struggled to reach the surface, but I could not break through. Above me I saw a shadowy figure. Charlie! I raised my arms, reaching for him. But when I looked up again he was gone. Instead there was a light, blindingly bright. I kicked my legs and tried to swim toward it.

  I struggled to focus my eyes. In the blurriness, a shadow moved. “Charlie?” I called, more certain than I’d ever been in a dream that he was here.

  I blinked and my vision cleared, revealing an unfamiliar white wall in front of me. I was in a narrow bed with crisp sheets. Out of the corner of my eye, something shifted and I turned, yelping as pain shot through my side. But it wasn’t Charlie: Claire sat half-asleep in a chair beside the bed. I inhaled a metallic smell and I realized I was in a hospital of some sort. I raised my hand to find my cheek swathed in bandages. An intravenous line ran to my wrist.

  “Thank goodness you’re awake,” Claire said, sitting up, relieved. “I’ll ring for the doctor.”

  “Wait.” My throat was dry and scratchy. I gestured toward the pitcher on the table beside me and she poured me a glass of water, then helped me take a sip. “What happened? Where am I?”

  “You’re in hospital in Surrey. You set off an unexploded ordnance on the beach in Cherbourg when you tried to go your own way.” The images rushed back to me of sneaking away from the boat, hearing the sailor yell. “You’re lucky to be alive,” Claire added.

  There was that word again. My stomach sank as I remembered the explosion just before I was knocked out. I looked around the hospital room frantically for my bag. “Where are the visas?”

  “Gone, I’m afraid. Your clothes, or Teddy’s rather, were ripped right from you by the blast.” Panic rose in me. The visas could not be gone. I would get to Lord Raddingley, beg or threaten him if I had to, in order to have them reissued. I started to sit up, but pain sliced through me. I lay back down weakly. “Where’s Teddy?”

  “Just getting coffee. He hasn’t left the hospital since you were admitted.”

  A mustached man in a white coat appeared in the doorway. “Miss Montforte, I’m Dr. Talley.” Without speaking further, he began to examine me, shining a light in my eyes. Then he gestured to my gown. “May I?” I nodded, cringing as he cold, unfamiliar hands pressed against my midsection. “We removed a piece of metal from the exploded ordinance in your side.” So that explained the pain. “It didn’t hit anything vital, but we are worried about infection. It will heal, and the rest are just scratches.” He picked up the chart that hung from the foot of the bed and made some notes.

  “How is she?” Teddy’s familiar voice, heavy with concern, called out as he strode through the door. Then, seeing me awake, he stopped. Relief broke across his face. “You’re awake!” He rushed to me and touched my cheek, not bothering to mask his affection.

  It occurred to me that I did not know how much time had passed. “What day is it?”

  “Friday,” he said. Four days since I’d set out for Portsmouth. His forehead creased. “Do you remember what happened?”

  “For the most part.” I swallowed.

  “She’ll be fine,” the doctor said. “We’ll want to monitor the wound for infection and she’ll have to get back on her feet slowly. Plenty of rest and she can go home in about a week.” He walked from the room, leaving just Teddy, Claire and me.

  An awkward silence passed between the three of us. “I’m going to freshen up,” Claire said, slipping from the room.

  I cleared a spot on the edge of the bed for Teddy to sit. But he walked to the window, and when he turned back, the relief in his eyes had been replaced by anger. “You betrayed me,” he said. “Stole my pass, my clothes. My credentials have been suspended because of you. You’ve threatened my reputation as a journalist.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, meaning it. But some part of me remained unrepentant. Tricking him had been wrong—but even as I apologized, I knew that I would do it all over again in a heartbeat if it would help the children.

  I had to ask about the clippings I’d seen. “Teddy, the newspaper stories in your drawer.” Surprise and panic crossed his face as he realized I had seen them. “What’s it all about?”

  “You haven’t told anyone, have you?”

  “No, of course not. But I had no idea.”

  He walked to the door and closed it, then returned to me. “I’m doing some work with the Polish resistance. Even before Tomaszewicz came over I was helping where I could, carrying messages and such.” I thought back to his mysterious trips, supposedly chasing stories. “Then after you met Tomaszewicz, I went back to see him and he put me in touch with some of the key partisan factions. I send their information back to Washington for them. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I didn’t want to put you in danger. You understand now why I couldn’t jeopardize that to help the children.”

  “Completely.” But my mind whirled as I tried to process everything he had told me. “I’m sorry if I risked things.”

  “There’s no way you could have known. I’ll fix it.” I looked up, more in awe than ever of him. “But no more secrets between us, okay?” I nodded. I should tell him also that I had seen the truth about my parents in his file. But I was too weary to talk about it now. He dropped to the bed beside me and touched my cheek. “I’m just so bloody relieved you’re okay.” He took me in his arms, forgiving me in an instant.

  I looked down at the white of my hospital gown. “But I failed.”

  “Not at all. It worked.”

  “What do you mean? I couldn’t get to the children.”

  “No, but your going raised the alert for the Red Cross. They’ve pressured the Germans and have moved in to take control of the children.” I was flooded with relief. They still were not safe, but they were closer now. “They’ll be brought to London. Claire spoke to Lord Raddingley and he has agreed to have the visas reissued.” I could not imagine what that conversation had been like. Had the charade between them persisted?

  I lay back, exhausted but relieved. The children, including Leo’s sister, I prayed, would be safe. Then my spirits sank. It was a drop really in an ocean of despair, c
ompared to the thousands I could not save. But it was something.

  Teddy ran his hand across my forehead, brushing the hair away from the bandage beneath. I winced. “Does it hurt?”

  “No, but I must look a sight.”

  “You look perfect.” He leaned closer, eyes aglow, and I wondered if he might kiss me.

  But just then Claire came back into the room. “It’s all arranged.”

  “What is?”

  “We’re having you discharged from this dreadful hospital and you’ll come and convalesce at our house in Brighton. We can’t keep you here in this germy hospital. The food is awful and you’re just as likely to catch something.”

  “The doctor agreed?” Teddy asked.

  “He wasn’t keen at first but I promised him full-time nursing. So it’s settled. You’re coming with me.”

  * * *

  I walked into the guesthouse and sank wearily into the seat by the window. I’d been here for almost three weeks. At first, Claire had not allowed me to do anything but stay in bed. But then she’d been called off for assignment, leaving me with the nurse, whom I persuaded to help me walk, first around the gardens and later the fog-bathed apple orchards.

  By the time Claire had returned three days later, I was up and about and it was too late for her to stop me. “Fine, but don’t go walking on the beach. It’s mined and you’ve already been through that once.” I shuddered.

  So I walked along the edge of the estate that faced away from the coast, going a bit farther each day, watching lambs play in the rolling green fields that showed no signs of war. Today I’d overdone it a bit in the warm August air. Breathing heavily, I poured a glass of water, willing the pain in my side to ease. The nurse had left my dinner, soup and thick brown bread on a tray and I ate, more hungry than I had been in some time. The guesthouse was a lovely cottage with a bedroom and kitchenette and bright yellow curtains. Claire had some of my things sent down from London and buying everything else I lacked. Outside, a summer breeze blew the scent of cut grass upward through the open window. But the bucolic air seemed like a taunt. I needed to be back in London, working at the paper, not sitting here uselessly. I would ask Teddy again to take me back with him.

  My eyes drifted gratefully to the basket of fresh fruit on the table. Teddy had brought it a few days earlier, having scoured at least three markets to find the bounty of oranges and apples that had begun to trickle back into the city. “I’ve got to get back,” he said reluctantly after helping Claire to bring me here. I nodded—there were stories that would not wait to be written. He had come every weekend since then to bring me food and share stories from the office. “Midge has been filling in for you,” he had told me on the previous visit. “Her typing is good enough, but she’s not much for conversation.” I’d smiled, imagining Teddy trying to make conversation with the dour older woman.

  After I finished eating, I washed and changed into my nightgown, then slipped into the freshly made bed. The cottage sat on a bluff high above the sea and through the open window I could smell the water. I stared out at the horizon. Light flickered over the continent, though whether it was fighting or a storm, I could not tell. My eyes grew heavy.

  A knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts. “Coming!” Claire was away on a mission. I imagined for a second that it might be Charlie, magically reappeared. More likely the nurse, who usually came to check me once before bedtime and make sure I had not overexerted myself, per Claire’s orders.

  “Addie? It’s me.” Teddy’s voice came through the door, and the vision of Charlie evaporated.

  “One minute.” A bit of disappointment mixed with surprise as I put on my dressing gown, then opened the door. Teddy stood on the doorstep, perspiring faintly in the thick summer air. His tweedy travel coat and hat were covered in dust and cinders. “Teddy, what on earth? How did you get here?”

  “I drove,” he said simply.

  Through the rain and the night and the blackout. I shivered, imagining him navigating the blind curves around high hedges in the darkness. To reach me. “But the curfew.”

  “I’ve broken worse.” He smiled roguishly. “May I come in?”

  I saw then how very much he cared for me, the depth of his affection. I had not misled him or promised him anything, but he came faithfully, still holding out hope. “Also, I wanted to bring you this.” He held out an envelope. I took it and opened it hurriedly. Inside was a piece of yellowed typed paper bearing the Western Union heading. A telegram—from America. Aunt Bess had written a few times since I’d been here, brief descriptions of life in the neighborhood back home that seemed not to have changed at all. But this was clearly something different.

  “You didn’t have to come all of this way,” I said as I unfolded it. He shrugged. He might have sent it by post or even courier. But he had wanted to come himself. “Thank you,” I said, touched. “And as soon as I read this, I want to hear all about the story...” I stopped midsentence as I read: “Your uncle has suffered a heart attack and the prognosis is not good.”

  “Oh, no.” Though she was too proud to ask, it was Aunt Bess’s way of saying that she needed me. Calling me home.

  Sadness washed over me then as I pictured my uncle in his horn-rimmed glasses and plaid vest that last day as he saw me off at the bus station. We had not been so very close, but he was Papa’s brother, the closest link I had to my parents. And he had been good to me. I reached under the bed for my suitcase, which Teddy had brought from London when I first came from hospital. “I’ll need a leave from the paper.” Then I stopped again, looking around and picturing my flat back in London. For all of its messiness, I had created a life in England and I wasn’t sure I was ready to leave. But after all that Aunt Bess had done for me, I had to go, at least for a few weeks.

  Teddy stepped close and took my hand. “You’re not well enough yet to travel to America.”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  “I’ll go with you. I’ve always wanted to see the States,” he half joked. “But we can’t possibly go at this hour,” he added before I could protest. “We’ll leave at first light.”

  He was right, of course. I let him lead me to the couch. But I pictured Aunt Bess, thousands of miles away and all alone. Uncle Meyer was all that she had in this world. Looking up into Teddy’s devoted eyes, I was suddenly grateful that he was here. I kissed him on the cheek. He hesitated for a minute, surprised, then wrapped his arms around me.

  There was another knock at the door. Not waiting for an answer, Claire rushed in as Teddy and I broke apart. “So many visitors in one night,” she said, taking us in. She looked down at my open suitcase. “What on earth?”

  “I have to leave. My uncle is seriously ill. Teddy just brought the news.”

  “I’m going with her,” Teddy said, as though it was already settled.

  I started to protest, then decided against it. Instead, I turned toward Claire. “I know you’ll say I’m not well enough to travel.” She was staring at me oddly. “What are you doing here anyway?” In all of the commotion about Uncle Meyer, I’d nearly forgotten that Claire was supposed be off serving somewhere. No, she was not staring at me, but past me at Teddy so sadly, as if asking for his forgiveness. “Tell me,” I demanded.

  “It’s Charlie.” My stomach dropped as I waited for further confirmation that he had died, or worse yet, details about how. I thought after the last time that my heart could never break again, that nothing could ever hurt like that because the pieces would never heal. But the scream rose up from deep within me, ready to be let free.

  She didn’t say anything more until she reached my side. “They found him. Addie, Charlie is alive.”

  The car Claire had arranged raced in the darkness along a winding country road flanked by high hedges. “Brought into a field hospital in Dover,” Claire had explained back at the cottage, though
I was scarcely able to hear her. “Apparently he’s been there for weeks.” So he had been close by all this time. How had I not known? And why hadn’t he sent for me?

  I sat now beside her in silence, my plan to rush home to America to be with Aunt Bess slipped by the wayside. Teddy sat in the front seat beside the driver, staring straight ahead and not speaking. It could be a mistake. Another soldier, not Charlie. For so long I’d conditioned myself to the pain, I was immune, it now seemed, from hope. I grimaced at my reflection, pale and disheveled, in the car window. I should have made myself look better for Charlie. But I could not wait any longer to see him, to start the life we had wanted for so long. He would still want me, of course, as he had the day he shipped out. Or would he? After all, he had left London thinking I’d stood him up at the chapel. Maybe that was why he had not let me know he was safe. How I regretted all the times I had pushed him away for reasons that seemed so important—reasons I could not even remember now. Whatever time we might have was fleeting. I would be his and we would run with this.

  “How did you find him?” Teddy asked.

  “I heard a story on base about a pilot who had crashed in Germany, just over the Swiss border. He was able to make it across on foot, despite a slight leg fracture. Quite remarkable, really.”

  “Are you sure it’s really him? It could be another pilot.” There was an unmistakable note of hope in Teddy’s voice.

  “I put two and two together and checked. It is definitely him.”

  We soon reached a military base reminiscent of Portsmouth with the same barbed wire-capped fence and sense of non-stop activity. At the gate, the car stopped and driver rolled down the window. Claire reached over to show her pass. We drove on past large tents and makeshift barracks, stopping in front of a two-story redbrick building with hospital markings. I started out of the car, but she stopped me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Addie, wait. There’s something you should know. Charlie took a terrible blow to the head and he has trouble remembering.” So that was why he had not sent for me the second he returned. It seemed inconceivable, though, that he would not know me at all. “You must prepare yourself.”